分析艾伦·吉尔克里斯特(Ellen Gilchrist)的罗达·曼宁(Rhoda Manning)故事

艾伦·吉尔克里斯特(Ellen Gilchrist梦幻之地(1981年)提供了一个完美的例子,说明了艾伦·吉尔克里斯特(Ellen Gilchrist)的艺术:她的简洁和笨拙的散文,不可磨灭的和经常易于体现的角色,她掌握了美国农村城镇的社会和物理地理,尤其是在南部。但最引人注目的是罗达本人的肖像。尽管这四个故事不是连续或按时间顺序排列的,但吉尔克里斯特仍然创造了美国菲利斯(American Fi Ction)中伟大的女性角色之一:以自我为中心,操纵性,自恋,她几乎是一个令人兴奋的人,她几乎会与她接触过的每个角色,与(也许还有许多读者)。然而,与此同时,吉尔克里斯特(Gilchrist)通过巧妙地介绍将罗达(Rhoda)行为置于更广泛的女权主义背景下的元素来使肖像复杂化。正是这种谨慎而巧妙的角色阴影,对整个女性的大规模社会力量的意识,使这些故事的记忆力和重重。

这个复杂的肖像在故事“复仇”中看到。罗达(Rhoda)在第二次世界大战期间10岁,每当她不走自己的路并希望对男性堂兄的痛苦死亡将她排除在比赛之外时,就会发脾气。然而,间接理解如果不同情,通过这张女孩的肖像trick绕,看上去表面上只不过是一个自私(和种族主义者)的小子。例如,她对男性堂兄的“报仇”(就像一个年长的女性堂兄一样,她在故事中被介绍的那样,都受到女性刻板印象的条件和限制:Rhoda灰心丧气,因为她被告知,因为她被告知,她被告知在家庭中的所有女性中,肌肉对女孩来说是“丑陋的”(119),并永远阻止她们实现最终目标,即婚姻。因此,她被“少女”(Girlish)的意思是被迫回到表亲,在这种情况下,她在婚礼上是荣誉女仆时穿着新衣服的闪耀。她带着新衣服开车回家,梦想着自己的胜利并报仇男孩:“等到他们看到我这样,我在想。等到他们看到我真正的样子”(121)。男孩们通过出汗,肌肉发达的成就获得荣誉。女孩,苗条,装饰的外观。 This point is further illustrated by the female cousin who joined the WAVES “to avenge [her husband’s] death” while training as a war pilot, but despite the photo of her leaning on a navy destroyer, she spends the war “in Pensacola, Florida, being secretary to an admiral” (117).

艾伦·吉尔克里斯特(Ellen Gilchrist) /密西西比大学图书馆

这种角色并发症是残酷的核心,通常是讽刺的故事“ 1957年,浪漫史”。十年后,罗达(Rhoda)赢得了她的男人,结果也许是可以预见的:19岁时,她第三次怀孕并与丈夫分开,她指责配偶无避孕措施强奸她,以使她被困在婚姻中。Again Rhoda’s deceptions, manipulations, and narcissism—capped by the final scene of her finding happiness, on the day of her illegal and dehumanizing abortion, by admiring how beautiful and slender she looks in a new black swimsuit (95)—are clearly contextualized by her condition as a woman. Forced to be obsessed about her looks (and how new clothes highlight those looks), forced to bear the entire burden of childbearing and child raising, her vanity and egocentric behavior are clearly meant to be understood as having a deeper source than some individual character flaw. As with the younger Rhoda and her cousin in “Revenge,” Rhoda’s behavior in this story is conditioned, as one critic puts it, by “the perpetual influence of the patriarchy” (Bauer 33).

除了该系列中的其他罗达故事 - 简短的“ 1944年”和“尼罗河的危险”,在大约13岁时,罗达(Rhoda of Nile)惊慌失措,并被驱使奢侈的宗教祈祷,对丢失的珍珠戒指 - 另外两个故事都有很大的罗达(Rhoda)- 像主题和主题。In “Generous Pieces,” the character Margaret, who lives in the same Indiana town and on the same street as Rhoda, also is obsessed about her and other people’s looks, witnesses sexual games of control (the females are “generous pieces” for the males), and in these early years of puberty is terrified by the world for reasons she cannot wholly understand. The superb story “Traveler” reads like a sequel to “Generous Pieces” and again could easily be categorized as a Rhoda story despite the protagonist’s altered name (LeLe Arnold). As is Rhoda (and Margaret), LeLe is plump and red-haired, spoiled, egocentric, and mendacious; she and her Mississippi cousin are fascinated by the “impenetrable mystery of physical beauty” (143) and the endless boys who come a-courting, LeLe to the point of risking her own death in order to impress one boy with her (invented) swimming skills. Having made the big swim, and driving home with the handsome, broad-shouldered boy’s arm around her shoulder, LeLe is ecstatic over her triumph and vindication; the careful reader, though, is clearly meant to see her actions as a further and unconscious cementing of her spiritual debasement.

吉尔克里斯特(Gilchrist)在后来的收藏中回到罗达(Rhoda罗达:故事中的生活。布拉德·胡珀(Brad Hooper)认为,罗达(Rhoda)的故事(以及关于诺拉·简(Nora Jane)的故事,另一个反复出现的吉尔克里斯特(Gilchrist)角色)代表了吉尔克里斯特(Gilchrist)的“最大成就,她最共鸣的作品”(148)。吉尔克里斯特(Gilchrist)在她的第一个故事中首次露面,以及关于非常相似的角色玛格丽特(Margaret)和勒勒(Lele)的故事,她的最高形态是她对这些注定的旅行和trav徒的痛苦和抛光诚实的写作。年轻女性。

参考书目
鲍尔,玛格丽特·D。艾伦·吉尔克里斯特的小说。盖恩斯维尔:佛罗里达大学出版社,1999年。
吉尔克里斯特,艾伦。在梦想的梦想中。1981年。胡珀,布拉德。艾伦·吉尔克里斯特(Ellen Gilchrist)的小说。康涅狄格州韦斯特波特:普拉格,2005年。



类别:美国文学,,,,文学批评,,,,文学,,,,短篇故事

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