| 摘要: | 本論文的重點是東妮莫里森《最藍的眼睛》小說中的非裔美國人珮格拉(Pecola)， 尤其是她想要有藍色眼睛的幻想：她認為只要有了藍色的眼睛，她就可以白皙美麗的，並且被1941年奧亥歐洲小鎮的主流的白種人社會接納。在小說中，以及本論文裡，由於受到父母親的問題關係影響，珮格拉想當白人的妄想變得如此的根深蒂固：因為她的父母飽受當時的社會隔離，無法給珮格拉還有她的弟弟需要的愛與關懷。事實上，小說後段甚至描繪了父親強姦女兒的情節-出於愛、恨、憤怒與罪惡。
本論文以主流白人的社會當中的芭比娃娃的審美標表來探討珮格拉的案例，這種審美觀在早期1940年代的美國中部。本論文從拉岡(Lacan)的鏡像階段理論，探討她對於她臉龐的擔憂、她的自我形象：小嬰孩在開照鏡子的時候，當她意識到自己其實是鏡子裡的「另外一個人」，她便開始在想像階段建立起一個理想化、經過想像過的「自我」。從這裡，我們可以把它跟珮格拉的(黑與白)分裂人格做連結。
本論文會大幅探討歐美（尤其是美國）種族歧視與蓄奴歷史的心理，包含了馬克思對奴隸交易的詮釋，還有黑奴遭受的悲慘待遇。莫里森(Morrison)與珮格拉(Pecola)的祖先從17到19世紀，就被美國東南方白人奴役，在棉花田做苦工。非裔美人繼承了過去那種極度羞辱的心理感受，這也連帶地影響20世紀美國黑人與白人男性對待黑人女性的不當態度，也就是今天的性別歧視議題，它深深關係到美國非裔女性的權利。
本論文第二章提及，珮格拉被自己的親生父親周力(Cholly)強姦，並在第五章針對此件事作細部討論。本論文專注於莫里森對周力性格的側寫-自由不羈且「混亂無章」-就像爵士音樂與靈魂樂曲的即興演奏一般，這兩種音樂類型也是非裔美國人的發明。在本論文第五章，我們會簡短探討莫里森「開放」且「不協調」的創意寫作風格，她的許多小說讀來十分像爵士樂曲，甚至她的處女作《最藍的眼睛》。或許，《藍色讓人聯想起靈魂樂曲的憂鬱意義，也讓人想起那漂亮的藍色眼睛，就像莫里森的小說一樣。
In this thesis the author focuses on the role of the African-American character Pecola in Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye, and in particularly on her dream of having blue eyes so that she can be both white and beautiful, and thus be accepted by the dominant white society in a small city in Ohio in 1941. Pecola’s obsession with being white is also set, in novel and in the thesis, in the context of Pecola’s problematic relationship with both her mother and father, who themselves often argue and, due to their own sense of being discriminated against, apparently give neither Pecola nor her brother the love they need. In fact, in a shocking scene late in the novel the father rapes his daughter out of love, hatred, anger and guilt.
Pecola’s case is analyzed in the thesis in relation to the dominant white “Barbie doll” beauty standards that prevail in Middle America in the early 1940s, and her concern about her own face, her own self-image, is also discussed in the context of Lacan’s theory of the mirror stage, at which point an infant first realizes that he/she IS also that “other person” in the mirror, a stage followed by the imaginary stage in which the child has a sense of his/her imaginary and ideal “I”—where now we might think of the latter in relation to Pecola’s split (black-and-white) identity.
The thesis then discusses at length the psychology and history of racism and slavery in Europe and particularly in the USA, which includes Marx’s capitalist explanation of the slave trade and the terrible treatment of black slaves—the ancestors of Morrison and Pecola—by white plantation owners in the southeastern USA in the 17th-19th centuries. The psychological feeling of extreme humiliation that African-Americans bring with them out of their past is then related to the gender-based issues of American black women’s mistreatment at the hands of both black and white men in the late 20th century and to some extent still today, and the issue of African-American women’s rights.
Pecola’s rape by her own father, Cholly, is discussed in Chapter 2 and then looked at again in Chapter 5, which focuses on Morrison’s description of Cholly’s freewheeling and “chaotic” character in terms of the freedom and improvisation of jazz music and the blues, both of which were created by African Americans. This chapter then also looks briefly at Morrison’s own use of an “open” or “discordant” style that has been called jazz-like in many of her novels, and even in her first one, The Bluest Eye. Perhaps, it is suggested, this “bluest” catches the meaning of “feeling blue” as well as that of “beautiful blue eyes.” |
