从种族到人性 --对索尔贝娄文化身份及其小说人物文化身份的辨析

在诺贝尔文学奖的获得者索尔贝娄的小说中,主人公的犹太身份特征总是处于一种由强到弱的淡化过程中。这种淡化的轨迹有两条:一是以时间为线索,另一条则是以空间为线索。贝娄小说中主人公的犹太身份是贝娄文化身份的重要风向标。循着这两条变化的轨迹,贝娄的文化身份由犹太作家渐变到犹太作家和美国作家直到他所自称的"一个有着犹太(文化)遗产的美国作家"。这种身份的演变使索尔贝娄不断超越了种族的局限,使他在展现和探索人性的过程中有了更丰富和宽泛的选择。

From Ethnical to Universal--An Analysis of Bellow's Cultural Identity and the Cultural Identity of the Protagonists in his Novels

In Saul Bellow's fiction, his protagonists' Jewish identity is always in the process of becoming weaker and weaker. There are two directions of such process: one is chronically based and the other is text based. As a matter of fact, the change of his protagonists' Jewish identity is emblematic of Saul Bellow's culture identity, which progressed from a Jewish writer, to an American writer, to finally "an American writer with Jewish heritage". With such change of identity, Saul Bellow is entitled to diverse alternatives for his presentation of the universal humanity.