出刊年月/Date of Publishing

2006.12

所屬卷期/Vol. & No.   第36卷第4期 Vol. 36, No. 4

類型/Type                 研究論文 Research Article

篇名/Title
Representing the (Un-)Expected—Dream, Violence, and “Danse Macabre” in Toni Morrison’s Sula
《蘇拉》中的夢想、暴力和「死亡之舞」

作者/Author
林雅惠 Ya-huei Lin

頁碼/Pagination
pp. 521-549

摘要
期待真正自由平等的夢想總是被延遲，會怎樣？本文試圖探究摩里森如何透過《蘇拉》的災難敘述來尋求解答。介於文本和其歷史／社會背景間，她的死亡修辭如何釐清非裔美國人在二十世紀承受的傷害及其潛藏的原因？個人認為，除了(自我)毀滅的情節外，薛爵克 (Shadrack) 創造的「國家自殺日」最耐人尋味。一方面，它具體呈現個人意識的恐慌或「暈眩的理智」(“reason dazzled”)，如傅柯 (M. Foucault) 所言。另一方面，它亦影射其族群生活「不」可預期的暴力和脆弱。隨著薛爵克，「底層」社區在小說結束前的「死亡之舞」不僅質疑他個人創舉之效力，也再次強調黑人族群生活的暴力充斥、政府的疏失、以及總是被延遲的夢想。

Abstract
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it “fester like a sore and then run”? And if it explodes, as Langston Hughes surmises in Harlem, what form of violence does it take? This paper attempts to explore how Toni Morrison entertains the possible answers to the above questions through diverse narratives of disaster in Sula. Between this literary text and its historical/social context, how does Morrison’s rhetoric of death help bring into light the latent causes of widespread injuries in African-American life during the first half of the twentieth Century? And what is the most essential or effective impetus of that rhetoric? Tales of (self-)annihilation aside, Shadrack’s coinage of National Suicide Day, I believe, offers a most rewarding point for critical investigation. On the one hand, it is a public monument to private terror: to “reason dazzled,” as Michel Foucault expresses it in Madness and Civilization. On the other hand, it depicts to full capacity the (un-)anticipated violence and vulnerability in the collective life of his race. By following Shadrack to “kill” the tunnel they are forbidden to build, black folks perform their “Danse Macabre” and inadvertently meet their deaths by going too far into the cause of their outrage. Unwittingly they effect the literal sense of “National Suicide Day.”

關鍵字/Key Word
童妮．摩里森、《蘇拉》、非裔美國人、夢想、「死亡之舞」
Toni Morrison, Sula, African-American, Dream, Danse Macabre

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DOI
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學門分類/Subject
文學 Literature