模糊种族民族、性别和生态系统内部界线—— 论《我的安东妮亚》中地域和空间的解构作用

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摘要

这篇论文重点分析了薇拉·凯瑟著名拓荒小说，《我的安东妮亚》中地域和空

间的解构作用。在小说中，这些元素模糊了种族、民族、性别和生态系统内部的

界线。

首先，作为一名人权主义者，凯瑟反对在欧洲白人内部进行种族划分。根据

她所处时代的优生学，那些来自中欧和东南欧的移民女性有着强盛的繁殖力，因

而这些妇女被视为美国社会的一大威胁。然而，在故事中，女主人公，安东妮亚

旺盛的生育能力却成了讴歌的对象。小说中的一些子宫意象，比如腌制水果的地

下储存室和一些象征巢穴的空间，成功地突出了她的肥沃。除了模糊种族内部的

划分，《我的安东妮亚》也通过混合女主人公的民族身份模糊了民族内部的矛盾。

作为一名在美国大草原上劳作的拓荒者，当安东妮亚在这个新世界实现了她的农

耕梦时，她同时也成为了一名美国亚当。但是，另一方面，通过一些和他家乡类

似的地域地貌，她始终保留了自己波西米娅的民族标记。因此，一些象征美国和

波西米娅的地域风貌使她在本土民族和异域民族两者之间找到了平衡点。

其次，回顾美国文学历史上的田园传统，广袤的荒野一直是故事中只为男主

人公而保留的神圣之地，而女性角色，作为他们的妻子或母亲，只能够留在家中。

然而，在《我的安东妮亚》这部小说中，凯瑟将两性分别放到了对方的“领地”

上，并借此打破了这一“男主外，女主内”的文学传统。作为一名女性拓荒者，

安东妮亚喜欢在户外工作；而吉姆和其他许多那男性角色都和室内空间有着密切

的联系。空间已经不再按照性别来划分。此外，一些地域和室内空间也使安东妮

亚形成了一种雌雄同体的特征，而这一特征对打破男女两性的二元论起到了关键

的作用。

最后，小说中出现的半封闭空间缩短了人类和非人类自然之间的距离。我们

对于大自然不可言状的恐惧迫使我们在自己和外部世界之间设立了一道屏障。但

是除了对于安全的需求，作为人类，我们也有着对于冒险的渴望。因此，在故事

中，出现了一种特殊的空间构造来减轻人们对非人类自然的防备。同时，小说还

通过安东妮亚这个人物实现了人类中心主义和生态中心主义两者之间的平衡。作

为一个成功的拓荒者，她像很多的男性拓荒者一样将荒蛮的美国大草原治理得有

条不紊。她对人类利用自然抱以务实和理智的态度，这为她在农业上的成功奠定

了基础。然而，安东妮亚同时也是一位“地球母亲”，这一身份使她和她耕种的土

地发展了一种合作关系。她对土地怀有的那种既务实又合作的态度成功地消除了

人类中心主义和生态中心主义的界限。这种态度取决于安东妮亚雌雄同体的性格，

iii

而这种特殊的性格就是由小说中一些空间意象和地域所构建的。

在对上述四方面仔细研究后，可以得出结论：《我的安东妮亚》中空间和地域

成功地解构了本土和异域，男性和女性，人类和自然之间的对立关系。

关键词：空间地域种族民族性别生态系统

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the deconstructionist function of landscape and space in

Willa Cather’s famous pioneer novel, My

ntonia. In the novel, they play an important

role in blurring the boundaries in respects of race, ethnicity, gender and ecosystem.

First, as a liberal humanist, Cather objects to the internal divisions inside European

whites. The essentialist eugenics of her time turned those immigrant women from

non-Scandinavian Europe into a threat to American society for their fecundity. However,

in the story, the heroine, Ántonia is exalted for her fertility. Certain womb imagery in the

fiction, such as fruit cave and nest symbols, has successfully accentuated her fecundity.

Apart from race, My

ntonia has also blurred the boundaries of ethnicity through the

mixture of Ántonia’s ethnical identity. As a pioneer working on the American prairie,

Ántonia becomes the American Adam as she realizes her agrarian dream in the new

world. But, on the other hand, she still retains her Bohemian ethnical markers through

certain landscapes reminiscent of her old country. Therefore, national landscapes typical

of both America and Bohemia have stricken the balance between native and exotic

ethnicity.

Second, looking back to the pastoral tradition in the history of American literature,

the expansive wilderness is the sacred land only reserved for male characters, and

women, as their wives or mothers, are confined to domestic sphere. However, in My

ntonia, this tradition is broken by Cather as she transfers two sexes into each other’s

domain. Ántonia, as a pioneer woman, loves outdoor work; Jim and many other male

characters are closely associated with domestic spheres. The space is no longer divided

between gender lines. Furthermore certain landscapes and indoor spaces have also

facilitated the formation of Ántonia’s androgynous character, which is crucial to break

the rigid dualism of male and female.

Finally, the very idea of half enclosed space appearing in the novel has shortened

the distance between humans and non-human nature. Our inexplicable fear of

wilderness forces us to set up screen between ourselves and the outside world. But apart

from the need for security, as humans, we also have the contradictory desire for

adventure. Hence, a certain kind of spatial configuration, called “intimate immensity ”,

is wrought in the story to relieve humans of their guard against non-human nature. In

the meantime, the novel has realized the reconciliation between anthropocentrism and

ecocentrism through the heroine, Ántonia. As a successful pioneer, she brings order to

the wild American prairie like many male pioneers. Her agrarian success is based on a

practical and reasonable vision on humans’ utility of nature. But as a nurturing Earth

Mother, she, at the same time, develops a cooperative relationship with the land she

cultivates. Ántonia’s practical and cooperative attitude towards land has successfully

eliminated the boundaries between anthropocentrism and ecocentrism. And this attitude

relies on her androgynous personality which is made possible by some spatial images

and landscape in the novel.

After a close study of the above four aspects, it could be concluded that space and

landscape in My Ántonia are essential to deconstruct the boundaries between native and

exotic, male and female, human and nature.

Key Word: space, landscape, race, ethnicity, gender, ecosystem

Introduction

Being the first to bring the Muse into the blank prairies of Nebraska, Willa Cather

(1873-1947) is honored as one of the most celebrated female writers in the history of

American literature. Published in 1918, My Ántonia is indubitably the most popular

pioneer novel Cather has ever written in the course of her entire writing career.

My Ántonia, just like its Nebraskan prairie setting, is a novel of great possibilities.

One can read it as a work of modernism, as Stephanie Vaughn points out in her

introduction for My Ántonia, “with its fluid structure, its complicated, often unreliable

narrators, and its celebration of storytelling, — it has been recognized by recent

criticism as a major work of Modernism (xxiii).” One can also detect in it a trend

towards post-modernism and deconstruction, for the story has successfully broken the

binary opposition between native and exotic, male and female, and human and nature.

During the Progressive Era (1890-1913), America experienced an influx of

immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. These “new immigrants” were generally

considered to be inferior to those Scandinavian immigrants who were racially closer to

the people of the United States, and thus experienced severe discrimination in the

society. However, we can hear a dissenting voice in My Ántonia. Instead of only

featuring American-born characters or people from northern Europe, My Ántonia is also

a story about immigrants from Czech, which is central Europe. For instance, the heroine

of the novel, Ántonia and her family are from Bohemia, a region in Czech. In addition,

the characters in My Ántonia display a diversity of physical traits, which don’t conform

to the eugenics of the early 20th century in American society. In shaping these diverse

physical traits, Cather challenged the eugenic theories of her time and broke the

dualistic opposition of Nordic and Alpine Caucasians.

Gender is another aspect in which My

ntonia shows a tendency towards

deconstruction. In American history, stories of adventure and early settlement are

literary regions exclusively populated by male characters, or more precisely, by single

male characters. Unfettered with restraints from marriage or family, male pioneers

ardently indulged themselves in their task of taming a wild but fertile land.

Unexpectedly, this “bachelor” job is overtaken by a female character in My Ántonia.

The arduous task of outdoor cultivation seems to be tailored for Ántonia. She prefers to

Blurring the Boundaries of Race/Ethnicity, Gender and Ecosystem:

the Deconstructionist Function of Landscape and Space in My

ntonia

work out-of-doors than in a house and doesn’t care about being like a man. Nobody can

rival her in farming and she beats all the male characters in the story, including her

father, Mr. Shimerda and her husband, Cuzak. But Ántonia is as good a housewife as she

is a farmhand. She learns cooking at the Harlings while in the town and later on she

takes good care of her bunch of children. In this light, she embodies the perfect fusion

of a masculine pioneer and a feminine nurturer. Neither did Cather forget to show the

soft side of her male characters. Jim develops a sentimental attachment to his grandma’s

kitchen, a domestic sphere labeled as feminine. The Russian Peter plays a role of

housewife when living with Pavel and keeps a neat cabin comfortable enough for two

men “who were batching”1. In creating these androgynous characters, Cather has

successfully blurred the boundaries between two sexes and redefined the meaning of

being a man or a woman in the society.

Besides racial and gender identities, Cather has also discussed human beings’

identity as human beings in the whole ecosystem and successfully dissolved the

boundaries between human beings and nature in My Ántonia. In the very beginning, the

readers can feel the deep connection between nature and the characters in the novel.

Ántonia is portrayed as the daughter of the Earth. She has eyes which are “big and

warm and full of light, like the sun shining on brown pools in the wood,” her skin is

brown and has “a glow of rich, dark color” which symbolizes the very color of the earth

(24). Cather’s portrait of Ántonia’s physical appearance evokes the image of the wild

and fertile Nebraska prairies. In the latter part of the novel, this yesterday “Earth

daughter” has flourished into an “Earth mother” with immense generative power like a

“rich mine of life”. Furthermore, to fully exert her environmental imagination, Cather

foregrounds the prairie setting of the story and breathes a life into that piece of land.

Under her pen, the wild pasture ceases to be a mere setting, for there is motion

underneath it as if “herds of wild buffalo were galloping, galloping …” (19). The novel

is a perfect combination of human and nature which inspires us to reflect upon our

relationship with nature in the whole ecosystem.

After an in-depth study, the importance of landscape and space in blurring the

1Willa Cather, My

ntonia (NY: Bantam, 1994) 34. All the following quotations of the

novel are taken from the same edition with the page number indicated in the

parentheses.

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摘要：

ii摘要这篇论文重点分析了薇拉·凯瑟著名拓荒小说，《我的安东妮亚》中地域和空间的解构作用。在小说中，这些元素模糊了种族、民族、性别和生态系统内部的界线。首先，作为一名人权主义者，凯瑟反对在欧洲白人内部进行种族划分。根据她所处时代的优生学，那些来自中欧和东南欧的移民女性有着强盛的繁殖力，因而这些妇女被视为美国社会的一大威胁。然而，在故事中，女主人公，安东妮亚旺盛的生育能力却成了讴歌的对象。小说中的一些子宫意象，比如腌制水果的地下储存室和一些象征巢穴的空间，成功地突出了她的肥沃。除了模糊种族内部的划分，《我的安东妮亚》也通过混合女主人公的民族身份模糊了民族内部的矛盾。作为一名在美国大草原上劳作的拓...

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