湯婷婷《猴形者：他的偽書》中的文化混種

Cultural Hybridization in Maxine Hong Kingston’s Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book

美國弱勢族裔文學中，尋求新身分認同的掙紮歷程不斷地浮現，形成此文類的重要母題。華美作家湯婷婷在《猴形者：他的偽書》小說中刻意突顯文化和語言再現的複雜過程，藉此挑戰並打破既有的狹隘族裔定義。湯氏以一種＜差異＞的書寫策略批判美國文化認同的現況，突顯美國文化內部差異的重要性，以重新構築所謂的美國經驗。本文探討《猴形者》的文化翻轉、翻譯過程以及族裔之間複雜的＜連字號＞現象，以反思國家與族裔間的等式關係，進而彰顯＜華──美＞一辭中的連字元號內淺藏的另一個閱讀空間。書中角色惠特曼‧阿辛創造了一個跨越僵化思維的搗蛋鬼空間，並由語言打破各種藩籬，扮演多重角色，不斷地顛覆＜族裔＞的單一同質性、賦予＜族裔＞新的混種定義。

The struggle to forge a new identity recurs as a central theme in American minorityliterature. Kingston’s Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (1989) problematizes, subverts,and displaces restrictive ethnic definitions by emphasizing the complex processes of culturaland linguistic representation and interpretation. Kingston writes to reconstitute theAmerican experience through the strategy of “difference,” highlighting the importance ofdifference within American cultures by challenging the status quo of American identity.By investigating Kingston’s emphasis on the hyphen of ethnicity and culturaltransformation/translation in the novel, this essay explores the problematic valorization ofthe hybrid ethnic/national equation and offers an alternative cultural “space” between thehyphenated Chinese and Americans. Incessantly reformulated and reformulating itselfthrough languages and breaking boundaries, Kingston’s narrative offers an alternativetrickster space. Such space resists the homogenizing and unifying conflation to define“ethnicity” through her protagonist taking on multiple roles and constantly enacting versionsof ethnicity.