张泉，男，1957年3月15日出生于北京，美国中文作家协会永久会员。文学博士。1983年，毕业于北京第二外国语学院英语系。后赴英国基尔大学进修美国文学。1985年，获硕士学位。1987年，到美国马里兰大学进修美国研究专业。1993年，获博士学位。1995年，从东岸移居西雅图。1996年至2016年，在美国华盛顿大学法学院图书馆工作，现已退休。期间从事中、英文写作。作品有散文集《紫藤簃》《自別故園幾經秋》《伸出蒙恩的手》和文集《無聲的侍奉》，以及回忆录《五零后的回眸》上下卷和《创作回顾》之外，还有长篇小说《离乡人》。英文著作有长篇小说《Expatriates》，短篇小说集《Trojan Rooster》。
英文作品曾发表于Folio: A literary Journal《富丽欧文学》，Wisconsin Review《威斯康星文学》，The Armchair Aesthete《扶手椅上的美学家》，Timber Creek Review《林边小溪文学》，Christian Courier《基督信使》，Kimera: A Journal of Fine Writing《朦胧文学》（获一九九九年Pushcart Prize提名），Wordsof Wisdom《智慧的语言》，Five Points《五点文学》，Pangolin Papers, 《攀格林文学》（获一九九九年Pushcart Prize提名），再版《城垣文学》，The Long Story《中篇小说》，Red Rock Review《红磐石文学》，The Minnesota Review《密尼苏达文学》, 其中两篇获一九九九年 Pushcart Prize 提名。
中文作品曾发表于《世界日报》、《神国杂志》 (贰篇) 、《举目》（叁篇）、《生命季刊》、《传记文学》（肆篇）、《文学台湾》、《台湾风物》、《台湾文献》(两篇) 等。
张泉作品
散文随笔
放任天性
2021-10-04
在外留学、旅居大半辈子，回国不计其数。记不清这 些年坐了哪些航班、各家航班服务的差异。唯有那不绝于 耳的小孩在飞机上的吵闹声刻骨铭心!我天生晕机，十几 个小时的飞机不吃不喝、头晕目眩。随着年龄的增长，晕 机有增无减、愈演愈烈。所以对小孩在飞机上的吵闹声由 敏感发展到反感。
起初我倒不太介意。一旦发现在飞机上吵闹的大多是 自己同胞的小孩时，总觉得有些不知所措的尴尬。孩子不 懂事，大人像是在自己家里，旁若无人、若无其事。一次 一位大陆旅客把自己的小孩放在我们座位这边，自己躲到 另一边酣然而睡。孩子无人照管就不停地独自折腾。发现 我听音乐的插销后，就开始把它拔出，看看我有什么反应。 我能有什么反应?只得重新插回。这下他来了兴头，不停 地继续他新发现的恶作剧，直到他筋疲力尽到酣然而睡为 止。我在飞机上为这位不知名的大陆旅客无偿地“照看” 了她的小孩。这是发生在二十多年前的事。现在在飞机上 闹腾的大陆小孩，你就是想帮着“照看”都不敢!
前年在一次回西雅图的飞机上，遇到一位“杀气腾腾”的大陆小孩。和家里大人玩儿的时候，他不停地说:“我 枪毙你!” 那个大人好像也只有一句回语:“我枪毙你!” 而且是笑答!这一大一小的中国人，在上百人的飞机上， 没完没了地“你枪毙我、我枪毙你”了一路!
这使我想起一件小事。2013 年 4 月我和妻子参观台北 期间住在一家有自助早餐的旅馆。一次早餐，邻桌年方五、 六岁的小女孩不慎将餐桌上的刀叉掉在餐厅地毯上。眨眼 间餐厅服务员快步跑来弯腰将刀叉拾起，小女孩立即彬彬 有礼地鞠躬致谢。这挥之不去的一幕让我领会到在大陆被 人遗忘的“文化”含义:根植于内心的修养;不用提醒的 自觉;以约束为前提的自由;为别人着想的善良。
虚己以游世
2021-10-04
三十七年前，我和妻子骑车到北京饭店会友。完事后回来取车时和看车的发生了口角。存车时交了费，取车时换了个看车的，硬是咬定取车时交费。两人一来二去、互不相让。吵架的嗓门越来越高，各自的火气越来越盛，围观的人群也越来越多。
我那时身为二外英语系教师，胸前还别着红色的大学教师校徽。看车的便趁势提高嗓门大声喊道： “都看看，都什么年代啦！存车不交费，还大学老师呐！” 此话气得我七窍出烟。妻子在一旁劝道： “算了吧，不就两分钱吗！给她就算啦！” 两分钱虽不足挂齿，但这岂止是两分钱就能算了的事！大庭广众面前被诬告为“存车不交费”，这不乱了章法，是可忍孰不可忍。接下来发生的激烈争执可想而知。
最近有机会读到《庄子山木》中的一个故事，受益匪浅：“方舟而济于河，有虚船来触舟，虽有惼心之人不怒。有一人在其上，则呼张歙之。一呼而不闻，再呼而不闻，于是三呼邪，则必以恶声随之。向也不怒而今也怒，向也虚而今也实。人能虚己以游世，其孰能害之！” 大意是：当你驾驶一只小舟在河中游走，有一只空船撞到了你，虽然你脾气不好但是不会生气。但如果有一个人在那船上，你就会大声呼呵他。叫喊了一次对方没听到，你就会再三地呵斥人家，并且会口出恶言。之前不生气可是现在却生气，完全因为之前是空船而现在船上有人。不以自我为中心，虚怀若谷地生活在世上，又有谁能加害于他呢？ 一只空船撞到你，你可以忍气吞声。一只载人的船撞到你，你就火冒三丈了。
十八世纪德国哲学家叔本华讲：“针对别人的行为动怒，就跟向一块横在我们前进路上的石头大发脾气同等的愚蠢。”
一只载人的船撞到你，如同一只空船撞到你，只当没看见，若无其事，旁若无人。当你存车时交了费，取车时被指着你的鼻子喊“存车不交费，还大学老师呐！”你就装着没听见，不动声色、泰然处之。当众交出那两分硬币了事。
叔本华还有一句箴言“人性一个最特别的弱点就是：在意别人如何看待自己。” 哲理深邃透彻、入木三分！堂堂大学老师，当众忍气吞声地按着老婆的话交出那两分硬币？别人不在乎，我在乎! 人凭一口气，事凭一条理！
“人能虚己以游世，其孰能害之！”咱没经历过。但人若较真以游世，焉能无害？
要做到庄子所讲“虚己以游世”，那得旁若无人地生活。
要做到叔本华遇事不怒，就得不在意别人如何看待自己。
“什么时候身上流着不同血液的人才会停止相互憎恨?”
——《八月之光》的种族问题
2020年5月25日，年仅46岁的非裔乔治·弗洛伊德（George Floyd）在美国明尼苏达州明尼阿波利斯市鲍德霍恩镇被白人警察用膝盖抵住脖子最终致死后所发生的全美各州举行抗议种族歧视示威游行活动。非裔从来就是弱势群体，历史上承受的凌辱之残忍让人难以直面。华裔在美国也是弱势群体，因为新冠疫情，华裔再次成为部分人明显的歧视、攻击对象。我对美国非裔面临种族歧视的关注由来已久，早在40年前在国内大学学习期间，我对美国文学的兴趣就是从阅读美国作家威廉·福克纳创作的长篇小说《八月之光》开始的，我的大学学士毕业论文题目就是” The Racial Problem in Light in August“（《八月之光》中的种族问题） 。 面对非裔再次面临种族歧视和美国社会对他们的不公待遇，面对华人对此大规模示威游行的不理解和困惑，我想有必要通过从文学上解析福克纳的《八月之光》中种族问题，帮助读者了解和理解美国非裔对种族歧视不满的历史根源。此篇原创是英文，最近颜晓雪女士译成中文，借此机会愿和大家分享我的“《八月之光》中的种族问题”。福克纳的《八月之光》中主角乔• 克里斯默斯 一个世纪前曾大声发问：”什么时候身上流着不同血液的人才会停止相互憎恨?” 希望拙文有助于读者对乔• 克里斯默斯的“世纪呼号”有所理解和认知。
在《八月之光》这部长篇小说中，威廉• 福克纳借助乔• 克里斯默斯 1 这一黑人角色探讨了美国南部的种族问题。乔是“黑人(Negro)”一词内涵意义以及新教狂的受害者(所谓新教，包括加尔文主义，洗礼，卫理公会和一神论 2)，换句话说，他是整个南部社会的受害者，那里有着奴隶制传统，还有对奴隶制边容忍边 谴责的宗教。
“黑人”一词复杂的内涵意义和人们对此的反应，是乔以及整个南部问题的核心。在内涵意义的影响下，不论是白人还是黑人自己，都不能将黑人视为平等的人和独立的个体。此外，随着第一批黑奴贩卖到美国，人们也对黑人形成了一 种刻板印象。早在 1781 年，托马斯·杰斐逊在他的《弗吉尼亚笔记》中就对黑人 进行过描述;让·费根·耶林将其主要观点总结如下：
从他的肤色、头发和外形来看，他不如白人美丽;他的体毛少，出汗多，气味大; 他睡得少，不过只在休息时睡;他缺乏深谋远虑，因而常表现的勇敢无畏; 他“热情似火”，但他的爱由欲望组成，而非情感;悲伤很快就能随风散去。一般说来，与18世纪屮世纪相比，黑人男性更注重感觉，而非慎思，这一点与白人男性形成鲜明对比。尽管他与白人在记忆力水平上无所差别，但他的理性思考能力要“差得多”，想象“枯燥，乏味，反常。”3
从小说中可以明显看出，认为黑人就是低人一等的这种刻板印象，在福克纳 生活时期仍然存在。南部社会深受宗教影响，产生了一系列或特殊或让人疑惑难 解的问题和矛盾。小说中的多数主要人物，或多或少，都是黑人传统观念的受害 者，也是试图解决这一问题的宗教思想的受害者。其中，乔就是最大的受害者。
乔的受害历程早在出生前就已开始。他的祖父道克• 海因斯是加尔文主义的受 害者，此后，祖父自己又制造了诸多受害者。正是海因斯对这些残酷概念的曲解，注定了乔一生的悲剧。 海因斯性格粗暴，在女儿出生那夜，因打架斗殴入狱。海 因斯太太认为这与宗教有关，她在后来这样跟前任牧师盖尔• 海托华说道，
我告诉过他，是他身上的魔鬼在作怪......上帝多及时地给了他一个信号 和一项警告——他在自己女儿出生的时刻被关进监狱，那是上帝有意表 明，上天认为他不配养育女儿。那是上帝给的预示，那个镇(当时他是一名制动手，在铁路上干活)只会对他有害。
海因斯先生赞同妻子对于乔暴力行为与魔鬼有关的联想，但之后又将其改为是 宗教和种族狂热主义 5 共同作用的结果，这样他就能将自己的罪责推脱到别人身上。
在海因斯先生工作顺风顺水，担任锯木厂工头一职时，海因斯太太认为这是“因为那时他还没有染上虚荣和骄傲，没以上帝的名义来辩护和原谅他身上的魔鬼。”(第 326 页) 但当海因斯先生要杀死他女儿的情人(乔的父亲)时，海因斯太太告诉他，“如果这就是魔鬼的话。现在让你害怕的不是米莉的安全......” (第 326-327 页)实际上，海因斯先生为这一刻已经等了很长时间，等待通过他女儿降临到他身上的惩罚。对海因斯来说，米莉的“罪”证明了他妻子的话，他不适合抚养女儿，上帝会惩罚他身上的魔鬼。魔鬼和罪是等同的，海因斯随后发生了奇怪转变。米莉，她的“罪”，以及她罪的产物，都成了魔鬼的杰作。 在小说接近尾声的时候，他谈到自己有了魔鬼的后代。(第 392 页)他自己成了 上帝消灭魔鬼的工具。正是他女儿的非法性关系引发了这一转变，并将暴力的 道克• 海因斯变成了一个疯子。
当海因斯被告知米莉的情人可能有一半黑人血统时，他立即认为肯定是这 样，因为这是对他惩罚的一部分。正如海因斯太太所说，“他从来没有说过他 是如何发现的，好像从来都无关紧要。”(第 327 页)种族概念因此与宗教概念 混合在一起，迫使道克• 海因斯成为极端主义者和专制主义者，发泄他对“恶 语和憎恶”的愤怒。当他的女儿和她的情人外出的那晚，海因斯先生骑马到他 们所在的地方，然后“用一只手“抓住那个人，另一只手拿着手枪顶着他，开 枪打死了他，然后骑着马把那个女孩带回了家”。(第 328-329 页)
道克• 海因斯在女儿怀孕期间的行为暴露了他的种族观念。他在杀了乔的父亲后，却和妻子发现女儿怀了孕。尽管海因斯不确定女儿的情人是白人还是黑人，他还是为她找了医生。可当“马戏团老板回来说这个人实际上是一个黑人而不是 墨西哥人”(第 330 页)时，道克•海因斯再次拿起手枪，打断了一座黑人教堂的 礼拜仪式，宣扬白人至上。在他女儿生孩子那晚，他拒绝找医生过来接生，举起枪对准海因斯太太，大吼道:“滚回屋去。让魔鬼收获它自己的作物: 这是 它播的种”(第 331-332 页)。在他心目中，罪、魔鬼和黑人成了同义词。他 的女儿在生下婴儿乔后就去世了，孩子永远也见不到，也永远没机会知道 自己的父母是谁了。他永远不会知道迫害他的人就是杀害他父母的凶手，就是他自己的外祖父。
道克• 海因斯在平安夜把孩子放在一家白人孤儿院的门阶上，乔悲惨的一 生就此开始。从此以后，道克• 海因斯的生活也发生了很大变化。他放弃了工 头的工作，转当孤儿院的看门人，就是为了观察在乔身上“上帝意志的运作”。“曾经暴力的海因斯现在可以安静地坐在孤儿院里五年，看着他的孙子。曾经称 职能干的工人，工头，毁了自己的效率和用处，拥抱起贫穷堕落的生活。”6
多年来，道克• 海因斯的观察，让孩子感到自己被孤立，不知为何与其他孩 子不同。幼儿的孤独、孤僻和羊皮纸色的皮肤引得其他孩子都叫他“黑鬼”。为了让孩子对“黑鬼”一词的外延意义加深印象，道克• 海因斯对他说，“你干吗不像从前那样同别的孩子一块儿玩呢?是因为他们叫你“黑鬼”吗?你是不是认为自己是个黑鬼，因为上帝在你脸上烙下了印记?”(第 335 页)天真的孩子问他 “上帝也是黑鬼吗?” 乔虽然不明白“黑鬼”一词的内涵意义，但他意识到自己和这个词有关。
因为乔被冷落，被别的孩子称为“黑鬼”，便对孤儿院雇佣的黑人园 丁产生了好奇，一边观察他，一边向他提出自己的疑问。
“你咋成个黑鬼的?”黑人说，”谁告诉你我是个黑鬼，你这没用的白杂种?” 他说，“我可不是黑鬼，”黑人说，“你比黑鬼更糟，连自己是啥玩意儿都 不知道。不止如此，你永远也闹不清楚，不管是活着还是到你死的时候。”(第 336 页)。
那个黑人园丁所说的是乔一生问题的核心。作为孤儿，他既不知道父母是谁， 也不知道自己是谁，“他童年的所有记忆是他证明自己是黑人的唯一证据。长大后，他即使没证据也相信这一点。”7
五岁时发生的一件小事结束了乔在孤儿院的生活。他偶然发现营养师房间里 的牙膏甜美可口。有一天，乔正在偷牙膏，营养师和她的情人进了屋，乔便困在 屋里。无路可走之下，他躲在窗帘后面。乔听不懂做爱的声音，在那只顾着吃牙 膏，结果犯恶心，还吐了起来。营养师猛地把他从呕吐物中拽出来，大声喊道: “小密探! 敢来监视我! 你这小黑杂种!” 这是乔第一次听到有人叫他“黑杂种”。 于是，他开始对”黑人“这个词的含义有了更多的了解。他知道因为“做错事”， 才有人这么叫他。
营养师对乔的所作所为代表了一种处理不当行为的传统方法，即一个有罪的 人可以简单地通过叫他或她的对手“黑鬼”来转移他或她的罪恶感。正如埃德 蒙·L·沃尔普指出的那样，这个词“掩盖了罪恶:愤怒，本应向内瞄准，却瞄准了顺手的外部对象。”
当孤儿院的护士长得知乔可能是黑人时，立即决定必须找人收养他。就这样，乔有了养父麦克依琴先生—— 一名严厉又崇尚加尔文主义的农民，他们一起生活了十三年。虽然五年孤儿院的生活让乔成为一个不合群的孩子，记忆中满是不愉 快和对成为“黑人”的模糊想法，但他对宗教还一无所知。
他对上帝比对干活更缺乏了解。他见过干活，扛着铁锹和耙子的男人每周六 天出现在活动场的附近，可是上帝只在星期日才出现。这一天——除了必须 穿得整整洁洁，还会有悦耳的音乐，不知所云的字句——总的来说挺愉快， 虽然有点儿乏味。(第 126 页)
为了让无辜的乔“很快懂得: 懒惰和胡思乱想是两大恶行，而干活和敬畏上 帝则是两大美德。”(第 126 页)麦克依琴想借助鞭子把圣经的教义灌输给孩子。乔对此表示抗拒，坚守自己的个性，在反抗过程中，他逐渐变得如修士般极端、僵化。当他被打时，他看上去“直视前方，凝神屏气，像画面里的修士。”(第 131 页)
麦克依琴的宗教观点把快乐等同于邪恶，他对乔的教育是粗暴的。 这个宗教是严酷的，认为一个人不能改变他的命运，但“由于没人能判断自己是否是上帝的选民，所有人都必须过着神圣而虔诚的生活，承认上帝的最高权力，并服从上 帝的命令。”9 被麦克依琴这样的人重新解释后，这就意味着一个人必须过着自我鞭挞或自我折磨的生活。“麦克依琴是这个节制生活概念的受害者，然后，他自 己又创造了受害者。”10 在麦克依琴的指导下，乔“从养父那所吸收的比自己意识 到的还多。”11 他成为一个不仅继承种族观念，而且继承宗教观念的人，“这影响了乔的生活态度，他无法对多面的人生经历做出自然反应。”12
乔和博比——“那个不漂亮的妓女，在背街小餐馆当女招待”13，的风流韵事，反映了麦克依琴的加尔文主义教育对乔产生了影响，他无法直面生活。 乔是个“理想主义者”，“从一个极端到另一个极端。 他抵抗人类生活的杂质、邪恶、恐怖和痛苦。”14 第一次听说月经时，乔的反应非常大，他杀死一只母羊，研究它的构造，还把手伸进血中。 (第 164 页)在与博比的第一次会面中，知道博 比说的“生病”是什么意思就吐了。(第 165 页)作为理想主义者，乔想象中“女人是完美无暇，不可侵犯，无限美好的。”15 受到过往经历的影响，乔的反应总是暴力而极端。 他对博比“生病”的反应，他对那只血淋淋的母羊的记忆，这 二者是有联系的。十四岁那年，他和朋友诓来一个黑人女孩(准备发生性关系)， 乔面对她的反应也是一样。对他来说，发生性关系会让人想吐，可能是受到他在孤儿院的经历的影响。“体内有什么东西要翻倒出来，像他想起过去吞牙膏的情形。”(第 137 页)
麦克依琴加尔文主义教育对乔的影响也反映在，乔意识到他和博比的关系是堕落和罪恶的。 为了与她幽会，他用一根绳子从麦克依琴家的二楼房间里偷溜出去，这根绳子对他来说就成了他罪恶的象征。
有时候，老两口在楼下熟睡打鼾，他悄悄拿出绳子时会情不自禁地想起这事 的反讽意味。有时他真想告诉她，让她看看他隐藏罪恶工具的地方。(p·166)
当乔发现他不是唯一一个进出博比房间的男人时，他试图照着其他男人的样子改变自己。 出于被社会接受的渴望，他开始抽烟，戴帽子，喝酒，把自己变成 “各种各样的城市男人，余生都是如此。”16
不幸的是，乔只知道他的爱是罪恶的，却不知道它是基于幻想和无知的，这 便导致了他后来的悲剧。 他爱的十分真诚，想要将自己的一切告诉博比，他告诉她，自己身上可能有黑人血统。 博比显然对此不太在意，但通过和博比接触，乔再次痛苦地意识到种族问题。
在乔把麦克依琴打翻在地的舞会上，博比因为麦克依琴对她的不雅称呼而责备乔。 她说，“混蛋! 狗娘养的! 把我给陷进去，而我一直把你当白人对待。当白人!” (第 189 页) 跟营养师一样，为逃避自己的罪责，她骂乔是“黑鬼”。 她说，“他亲 口告诉过我，他是个黑鬼! 狗娘养的! 我白被他奸了，他娘的黑鬼，把我给陷进 警察会插手的事，在一个乡巴佬的舞会上!”(第 190 页) 这样她就将罪责完全甩 给了乔，很省事。单单他的黑人血统，就可以让旁观者认为他才是罪魁祸首。这也揭示了“黑人”一词内涵意义对社会态度的强大影响力。 这样一来，看起来就 是一个白人女人被一个黑人男人骗了。
博比当众辱骂拒斥使乔幻想破灭，清白尽毁。 他从来没想过她会拒绝他:
他呆呆地凝视着她，看着她那张从未见识过的面孔，轻声地说(究竟说出声 没有，他自己也不知道)，缓慢而又惊讶: 我是为她害了命，我甚至为她去偷了钱，像是他刚刚听说这事，刚刚想到这点，刚刚被人告知他干了这事。 (第 189 页)
博比和她的老板们打了乔一顿，随后离开了小镇。 和他外祖父一样，在乔眼 中，种族和宗教观念融合在了一起，“失去清白后，罪恶感催生了寻求救赎的需 要，”17 于是他试图通过接受自己的身份来获得救赎。 他就这样走上“街”,开始 了长达 15 年自我救赎的生活。
这一时期，乔试图解决自己的种族问题，用“罪恶”的一生——从一个地方 到另一个地方，从一个女人到另一个女人，来证明自己是黑人。这一段情节的意 义在于，它揭示出乔在美国南部被当做白人抚养长大。因此，他继承了与白人相 同的种族观念。 乔的种种表现反映的是“黑人”一词内涵意义对他的影响。“他 同女人睡觉，有钱给她们钱，没钱也照样去睡，睡后便声称自己是黑人。”(第 196 页)显然，他认为无力支付是黑人的一种劣迹。同时，他声称自己有黑人血 统，以此为手段，伤害别人。 这也揭示了乔眼中“黑人”一词的内涵意义。有一 次，他差点杀死一个不介意自己是黑人的白人妓女，为此还病了整整两年。据查尔斯· H·尼隆所说，“乔的病是一种反感，一种南方白人男性知道自己女人和黑人男性 发生关系时可能会产生的反感。”18 种族观念和性欲相交，促使乔的行为更加暴力， 更加自相矛盾。乔为了成为黑人，“在街上”不断努力，却以失败告终。他这样活着:
同一个酷似乌檀木雕制的女人，像夫妻般地生活在一起。晚上他躺在床上， 睡在她身边，睡不着便开始用力做深呼吸。他故意这样做，感觉到甚至密切地注视着自己白色的胸脯在胸腔内逐渐逐渐地往下陷，竭力往体内吸进黑人 的气味，吸进幽深莫测的黑人的思想和气质; 然后又从体内着意呼出白人的血、白人的思想和白人的气质。整个呼吸过程中，他的鼻孔绷得紧紧的，胀得发白，竭力使自己的气味变成鼻孔正嗅着的气味，全部身心一齐扭曲用劲， 带着肉体的反抗和心灵的抵御。(第 197 页)
在此期间，他骗白人叫他黑人，就为了打他们或被打; 同样，他也打那些叫他白人的黑人。 “他显然相信其他白人对黑人的所有看法。 他也相信这些关于自己的事。 由此导致他要成为黑人困难重重。”19 他在为自己的身份挣扎时，遇到了乔安娜·伯顿小姐，并与其维持了三年的性关系。
乔与伯登小姐的关系分为三个阶段，每一个都让乔更接近他自己。 他渐渐地通过她认识了自己。 当他想离开她，回到“街”上时，最重要的一件事发生 了。她来到她让他住的小屋，告诉乔她家的事。 “第一阶段结束时，通过伯顿 小姐一家在南方的故事以及他们发展的关系，乔了解到，伯顿小姐和他有着相似 的问题。”20
乔安娜的祖父，加尔文·伯顿，是一位一神论牧师的儿子。 他十二岁时从 家里逃到加利福尼亚，成为罗马天主教徒，在修道院住了一年。 十年后，他在结婚时，公开否认效忠天主教会，认为教会里到处都是吃青蛙的奴隶主。 虽然祖父不懂英文《圣经》，但当乔安娜的父亲一能走路，祖父便用西班牙语读《圣经》给孩子听。 孩子五岁时，加尔文·伯顿在同别人争论蓄奴问题时，杀了对方，并 对自己儿子说:“我要你学会憎恨两桩事。不然我就狠狠地揍你一顿。那就是地 狱和奴隶主。”(第 212 页)因此，从小开始，乔安娜的父亲就深受宗教和种族 观念的影响。乔安娜祖父对黑人的真正态度从他与儿子的谈话中可见一斑:
该死的，那些低贱的黑鬼，他们之所以低贱是由于承受不了上帝愤怒的重量， 他们浑身黝黑是因为人性固有的罪恶沾染了他们的血和肉。 该死的，身材矮小的黑人: 由于上帝的愤怒的重量，低百分比的乌尔特，黑人因为人类奴 役的罪恶玷污了他们的血液和肉体......可是我们现在给了他们自由，白人黑 人都一样了。他们将会被漂白。一百年之后他们又会成为白人。(第 217 页)
这段话很好地阐明了“黑人”一词的内涵意义，即黑人的黑皮肤是上帝给他们的耻辱的印记，代表他们低人一等。 伯顿的推理很有趣。他所指的罪是白人犯下的， 但上帝惩罚了黑人。 也许这是由于他们屈从于奴隶制，因而不仅有罪，还成为 了罪的根源。 也就是说，黑人背负双重罪，因此上帝让他们长得又黑又矮。 伯顿认为黑人必须得到释放，这样黑人、白人都可以洗净他们的罪恶。 他认为黑 人一旦洗净罪恶，最终将变成白人，在此，他的白人优越观也显而易见。 因此， 激励他反对奴隶制的不是正义和平等的精神，而是“人类奴役罪”这一宗教观念， 这种罪恶并非基于对人类平等的信仰，显得奇怪而矛盾。
乔安娜的父亲受到父亲的强烈影响，他对黑人的态度如出一辙。他不仅 继承了父亲的种族和宗教观念，还将其传递给自己的女儿。一次，乔安娜父亲把 她带到她祖父和同父异母哥哥的墓地，说道:
记住这个。你爷爷和哥哥躺在这儿，杀害他们的不是白人，而是上帝加在一个种族头上的诅咒，注定要永远成为白种人因其罪恶而招致的诅咒和厄运的 一部分。(第 221 页)
黑人的罪恶再次被提及，解放黑人是“白人的责任”，白人借此也解放了自己。年轻的乔安娜并不懂父亲的训诫，满心困惑，开始担忧起她的生活，认为自己的生活将永远笼罩在“黑影”之下，就像她说的:“我认为所有的投生世上的孩子，白人孩子，他们一出世，在他们开始呼吸之前，就已经罩上了这个黑影。 而且我仿佛在一个十字架形状里看见这个黑影。”(第 221 页)
渐渐地，乔安娜成为父亲特有的宗教和种族观念的受害者。她用这些观念来诠 释生活，牢记并坚信父亲对她说的:“你必须斗争，站起来。而要站起来，你必 须把黑影一同支撑起来。可是你永远不可能把它撑到你自己的高度......你想逃脱 可办不到。黑种人受到的诅咒是上帝的诅咒。”(第 222 页)
完成学业后，乔安娜遵照她父亲的告诫，将一生都献给了“改进黑人”的事 业，在充满敌意的环境中过着自我陶醉的生活。
通过伯顿小姐的故事，乔了解到，特有的黑人和黑人正义如何支配她的生活和她家人的生活，使她无法过上女人应该过的生活的。 伯登小姐的生活揭示了“黑人”一词内涵意义具有强大影响力。21
也就是说，借由伯顿小姐，乔对自己的问题有了更清楚地认识。他们两人的问题 有相似之处，因为两人的生活都深受特有的“黑人”观念的影响。他在听故事时曾问道: “什么时候身上流着不同血液的人才会停止相互憎恨?”(第 218 页)这不仅仅 是一个问题，还是他复杂和矛盾的心理的体现，促使他成为一个与众不同，不合群的人。 乔越了解他问题的根源，他的内心冲突就越激烈。对他来说，黑人是 罪恶，而对乔安娜来说，黑人是救赎。因此，乔不能对自己是白人还是黑人下定 论，这也导致了他在第三阶段强烈拒绝了乔安娜的提议。
伯顿小姐提议他加入自己的黑人工作，也就是让乔表明立场，确认自己是黑 人。对此，乔答道: “上学......黑人学校。我告诉黑人，说我也是个黑人?” (第 241-242 页) 乔的绝对主义使他无法做出选择。 虽然他也知道自己可以就这样和乔安娜过着舒适安逸的生活，但是他还是这样说道: “要是我现在让步， 就是否认自己度过的三十年，否认三十年的经历使我选择的道路。”(第 232 页) 即使“这是乔唯一一次出于自愿表明他就是他自己”，他也还是不知道自己是谁，这正是乔问题的核心。
提议遭到拒绝后，乔安娜强迫乔和她一起祈祷。据埃德蒙·沃尔普表示，
两人都是各自绝对主义无意志的受害者，暴力是不可避免的...... 他不会跪 拜祈祷，又不能离开房间，他必须站着看着她。 他不能像她所要求的那样 成为黑人，......他的紧张感倍增，对所有折磨他的力量的化身，他要发出攻击，这个年头一直在他心头萦绕。23
当他拒绝和乔安娜跪在一起祈祷时，她试图射杀他。不过枪太老旧，一枪没打出来。乔便割了她的喉咙，然后放火烧了房子。
由此，乔开始接近自我救赎生活的终结。与试图逃跑的杀人犯不同， “他不躲避追捕，相反，他出现在一个黑人教堂，对塑造了他也摧毁了他的 宗教和种族观念，发表了最后一次强烈批判。”24 在教堂里，人们将他视为魔鬼。 当他冲进教堂站在礼拜者前面时，一个女人尖叫着，“他就是魔鬼! 撒旦的化身!”(第 282 页)对白人和黑人而言，乔就是撒旦。道克• 海因 斯诅咒他是“一个魔鬼”，麦克依琴打乔时，认为他在这个抗拒自己宗教教 化的男孩身上看到了撒旦。“但是他对此并不感到诧异，因为他所关心的不 是那张孩子脸，而是一副他同样熟悉的撒旦的面孔。”(第 178 页)对白人 和黑人而言，乔都是撒旦的化身。这就是乔问题的核心，他既不是白人也不 是黑人，哪一边都不接受他。它不仅仅标志着乔作为公认的白面黑鬼的悲剧， 也象征着南方社会的悲剧。他由南方社会所造就，同时又是受害者，不被社会视为人，白人和黑人都视他为撒旦化身，令人憎恶和恐惧。
黑人教堂事件后，乔踏上了所谓的飞行旅程，一周后出现在摩兹镇。被人认出来后，他并没逃跑，而是承认他就是乔• 克里斯默斯，并接受了逮捕。
自乔被麦克依琴收养后，海因斯和海因斯太太在摩兹镇生活了二十五年。 乔被捕后，道克• 海因斯对他疯狂的恐惧和憎恨在此展露无疑。在认出乔的一瞬间，海因斯就冲进人群，走到乔面前，大叫:“宰了这杂种!宰了他! 杀死他!”(第 302 页) 乔关在摩兹镇监狱时，道克• 海因斯每天都去镇上，
“竭力煽动乡亲们的情绪，要把‘乔’处以私刑”。(第 325-326 页)道克• 海因斯鼓动乡亲对他的亲外孙处以私刑这一行为，也展现出种族和宗教观是如何支配、迫害一个人的，如何让他完全丧失理智，走向邪恶的。
当乔• 克里斯默斯被从摩兹镇押往杰弗生镇时，他知道，自己的末日来了。在前往法院的路上，他逃跑了，溜进了海托华先生的家。狂热的种族主义者，珀西·格雷姆，将他杀害并阉割。“由此为南方的罪恶增加了一名受害者。”25
虽然这个暴力的结局给乔带来了某种平静，结束了他痛苦煎熬的一生， 受身份问题困扰的一生，但实际上，它什么问题都没解决。 面对死亡，乔也许对给他生活施加重大影响的力量了解更多了一点，但他仍没有解决他是黑人还是白人这一根本问题。
福克纳选择乔作为主人公来说明南方的种族问题是明智有效的。 乔并非受困于他黑人的身份。他的皮肤是白的。他的苦难来源于与黑人相关的一系列内涵意义，这些含义只适用于他，因为他可能有一半黑人血统。由此暴露了南方种族问题的荒谬和残酷。在试图解决“黑还是白”的矛盾时，乔试图接受的是他身上的黑人血统，而非白人血统。虽然他在心理上和精神上排斥黑人，但黑人是那个社会不可分割的一部分。福克纳似乎认为，这种态度只会导致死亡。
脚注
1
参考查尔斯·H·尼隆，《福克纳和黑人》，科罗拉多大学语言与文学研究丛书 8(科罗 拉多:科罗拉多大学出版社，1962 年)，对这一专题进行的广泛讨论。
2
埃德蒙·L·沃尔普，《威廉·福克纳普读者指南》 (纽约:Farrar、Straus 和 Giroux 公 司下属部门，1974 年)，第 20 页，第 155 页。
3
让·费根·耶林，《错综复杂的结》(纽约:纽约大学出版社，1972 年)，第 8 页。
4
威廉·福克纳，《八月之光》(纽约:现代图书馆，1959 年)，第 326 页;
5
沃尔普，第 161 页;
6
同上，第 162 页;
7
尼隆，第 77-78 页;
8
沃尔普，第 163 页-164 页;
9
威廉·罗斯·贝内，《读者百科全书》(纽约:Thomas Y.Crowell Company，1965 年)，
第160页;
10
沃尔普，第 162 页;
11
克林斯·布鲁克斯，《隐藏的上帝》(纽黑文、伦敦:耶鲁大学出版社，1963年)， 第38页;
12
沃尔普，第 173 页;
13
同上，第 167 页;
14
同上，第 166 页;
15
同上，第 166 页;
16
尼隆，第79页;
17
同上，第 79-80 页;
18
尼隆，第86页;
19
同上，第 86 页;
20
同上，第 82 页;
21
同上，第 83 页; 、
22
同上，第 84 页;
23
沃尔普，第 171-172 页;
24
同上，第 172 页。
25
威利斯·韦杰，《美国文学》(纽约:纽约大学出版社，1968 年)，第 236 页。
查阅的作品清单
詹姆斯·鲍德温，《没有人知道我的名字》，纽约:戴尔出版公司，1963 年。
威廉·罗斯·贝内，《读者百科全书》，纽约:Thomas Y.Crowell Company，1965 年。
克林斯·布鲁克斯，《隐藏的上帝》，纽黑文、伦敦:耶鲁大学出版社，1963 年。
威廉·福克纳，《押沙龙，押沙龙!》，多伦多:兰登书屋出版公司，1964 年。
威廉·福克纳，《八月之光》，纽约:现代图书馆，1959 年。
格里芬·约翰·霍华德，《像我这样的黑人》， 纽约:新美国图书馆公司，1960 年。
柯克·罗伯特 W.、克洛茨·马文, 《福克纳笔下的人物》，伯克利、洛杉矶:加利福尼亚大 学出版社，1963 年。
李文俊主编，《福克纳评论集》，北京:中国社会科学出版社，1980 年。 查尔斯·H·尼隆，《福克纳和黑人》，科罗拉多大学语言与文学研究丛书 8，科罗拉多:
科罗拉多大学出版社，1962 年。 奥布莱恩·约翰，《黑人作家专访》，纽约:利夫莱特出版社，1973 年。
埃德蒙·L·沃尔普 《威廉·福克纳读者指南》，纽约:Farrar, Straus and Giroux 分部，1974 年。
威利斯·韦杰，《美国文学》，纽约:纽约大学出版社，1968 年。 让·费根·耶林，《错综复杂的结》，纽约:纽约大学出版社，1972 年。 朱炎，《美国文学评论集》，台北，联经出版公司，1976 年。
“美国华人”发表了我对美国作家威廉·福克纳长篇小说《八月之光》中的种族问题的解析，希望此文能有助于了解和理解美国非裔对种族歧视不满的历史根源。 https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/PnCht8rRB7c9Jp8HAgS_IA
后记
七十年代末在《毛选》第五卷翻译工作期间，李赋宁教授对参加审稿的毛著室英文“小专家”林东宁非常赏识。工作结束后，曾邀请林东宁到北大西语系教授英文。1979年我考上二外英语系离开编译局后，林东宁曾一度在北大西语系兼课教授1979级英语快班。
1980年我和林东宁结婚时，李赋宁教授还特意送我们一幅精致裱好的立轴“齐白石荷花蜻蜓莲藕画”。画中初秋时节，塘中荷叶渐黄、莲藕长成而红荷尚在，一尾轻灵的蜻蜓闯进这静谧的画面。此画一直默默伴随着我们至今37年，点缀着我们的寒舍，衬托“秋日思语”的情趣。至今我還保留著李賦寧教授爲我的學士論文“《八月之光》的種族問題”（The Racial Problem in Light in August）專門寫了評語。
THE RACIAL PROBLEM IN “LIGHT IN AUGUST” By Quan Zhang
In Light in August, Faulkner explores the racial problem in southern United States through the character of Joe Christmas1 who is a victim of the connotative meanings of the word Negro and of a fierce Protestantism which is a mixture of Calvinism, 2
Baptism, Methodism and Unitarianism, that is, he is a victim of the whole society of the South with its heritage of slavery and the religion that both condones and condemns it.
The connotative meanings of "Negro", and people's response to them, are at the core of Joe's problem and the problem in the South. Because of these connotative meanings people, both black and white, are unable to respond to the Negro as a person, an individual. These meanings constitute a stereotype which came into being with the first load of Black slaves shipped into America. Early in 1781, Thomas Jefferson described the Negro in his Notes on Virginia; Jean Fagan Yellin summarizes the main points thus:
By virtue of his color, hair and form, he is less beautiful than the white; he has less body hair, sweats more, and smells; he needs less sleep, but sleeps when at rest'Jhe lacks forethought and hence often appears brave; he is "more ardent," but his love is composed of desire, not sentiment; his grief is quickly forgotten. In general terms common to the eighteenth century, the blac-k man, in contrast to the white man, isfound to be given more to sensation and less to reflection. Although apparently equal in memory, his reason is "much inferior," and his imagination "dull, tasteless and anomalous."
From the novel, it is apparent that this stereotype, embodying a belief in the general inferiority of the Negro, was still in existence in Faulkner's time. In the deeply religious South, it causes special problems and confusing contradictions. Most of the major characters in the novel are victims, in one way or another, of this inherited concept of the Negro and the religious ideas that try to deal with it, but Joe is the supreme victim.
The victimization of Joe can be said to begin even before his birth. His grandfather, Doc Hines, is a victim of Calvinist-
-1:ic concepts and, in his turn, creates victims. It is Mr. Hines' distortion of these harsh concepts that determines the course of Joe's life. He is a violent man and on the night when his daughter is born, he is imprisoned for brawling. Mrs. Hinesr'regards this as a kind of religious sign. She later tells the ex-minister Gail Hightower：
I told him it was because the devil was in him.... how right then God had given him a sign and a warning: that him being locked ~pin a jail on the very hour and minute of his daughter's birth was the lord's own token that heaven never thought him fitten to raise a daughter. A God above that town ... was not doing him anything
Mr. Hines accepts his wife's association of the violence in him with the devil but later transforms it "into a blend of religious and racial fanaticism115 that enables him to shift the burden of guilt onto others.
When Mr. Hines is working well and becomes a foreman at a sawmill, Mrs. Hines thinks it is "because he hadn't begun then
to take God's name in vain and in pride to justify and excuse the devil that was in him." (p. 326) But when Mr. Hines is going to kill his daughter's lover (Joe's father), Mrs. Hines tells him, "Eupheus, it's the devil. It's not Milly's safety that's quicking you now." (pp. 326-327) Mr. Hines has actually been waiting a long time for this moment, for the punishment which is to befall him through his daughter. To Hines, Milly's "sin" proves his wife's words that he is unfit to raise a daughter and that God will punish the devil in him. The devil and sin being equivalent, Hines then makes a curious shift. Milly, her "sin", and the product of her
sin all become the work of the devil. Near the end of the novel, he speaks of having grandfathered the devil's spawn. (p. 392) He himself becomes the instrument of God to destroy the devil. It is his daughter's illicit sexual relationship that triggers this shift and transforms the violent Doc Hines into a madman.
When Hines is told that Milly's lover may be part Negro, he immediately assumes that it must be so, for it is part of his punishment. As Mrs. Hines says, "He ain't never said how he found out, like that never made any difference." (p. 327) Racial concepts are thus blended with religious concepts, compelling Doc Hines to act as an exifmist and absolutist in giving vent to his fury at "bitchery and abomination." On the night when his daughter is out with her lover, Mr. Hines rides his horse to the place where they are, and then "grabbed ;-the man_7 by one hand and held the pistol against him with the other and shot him dead and brought the gal back home behind him on the horse." (pp. 328-329)
Doc Hines's racial views are revealed through his actions during his daughter's pregnancy. After he kills Joe's father, he and his wife find that their daughter is pregnant. While he is not quite sure of the race of his daughter's seducer he goes in search of a doctor for her. But when "the circus owner come back and said how the man really was a part Nigger instead of Mexican," (p. 330) Doc Hines again picks up the pistol and interrupts services in a Negro church to preach white supremacy. On the night when his daughter gives birth, he refuses to call a doctor to attend her in labor. He holds the pistol and shouts to Mrs. Hines, "Get back into that house. Let the devil ga.ther his own crop: he was the one that laid it by." (pp. 331-332)
In his mind, sin, the devil, and Negro have become synonymous. His daughter dies right after giving birth to her child, Joe, who will never see nor get to know his own parents. He will never know that the man.who persecutes him is his parents' killer and his own grandfather.
Joe's tragic life begins with Doc Hines placing him on the doorstep of a white orphanage on Christmas Eve. Henceforth, Doc Hines' life, too, changes a great deal. He gives up his job as foreman to become a janitor in the orphanage in order to watch "the working out of / God's / will" on Joe. "The once violent Hines can now sit quietly in the orphanage for five years to watch his grandson. Formerly a competent and capable workman, a foreman, he destroys his effectiveness and usefulness and embraces a life of poverty and degradation.
Over the years, by watching the child constantly, Doc Hines makes him feel isolated and somehow different from the other children. The infant's loneliness, strangeness and parchment coloured skin lead the other children to call him "Nigger". In order to impress the denotative meaning of the word Negro on the child's mind, Doc Hines says to him, "Why don't you play with them other children like you used to? Is it because they call you nigger? Do you think you are a nigger because God has marked your face?" (p. 335) The innocent child asks him "Is God a nigger too?" Without knowing the connotative meanings of the word "Negro", Joe is made aware that he himself has something to do with it.
Because he is left alone and called "Nigger" by the other children, Joe becomes curious about the Negro gardener employed in the orphanage and watches and questions him. "How come you are a nigger?" and the nigger said, "Who told you I am a nigger, you little white trash bastard?" and he says, "I ain't a nigger," and the nigger says, "You are worse than that. You dont know what you are. And more than that, you wont never know. You'll live and you'll die and you wont never know." (p. 336)
What the Negro gardener says is the core of the problem which Joe faces throughout his life. As an orphan, he neither
knows who his parents are, nor who he is and "his memories of childhood are his only proof that he is a Negro. When he is older, he believes even though he was no proof."7
At five, the incident that ends Joe's stay at the orphanage occurs. He accidentally discovers that the toothpaste in the dietician's room is sweet and pleasant-tasting. One day, as he is stealing toothpaste, he is trapped by the entrance of the dietician and her lover. Having no way out, he hides himself behind a curtain. There, without comprehending the sounds of love-making, he eats toothpaste which sickens him and makes him vomit. The dietician "dragged him violently out of his vomit" and hollers, "You little rat. Spying on me. You little nigger bastard." (p. 107) It is the first time for Joe to hear someone call him "nigger bastard." Thus he begins to know more about the connotative meanings of the word Negro, for the name he is being called is a result of his "wrongdoing."
The dietician's reaction to Joe represents a kind of conven- tional method of dealing with wrongdoing, that is, a guilty person can simply divert his guilt by calling his or her opponent "Nigger". As Edmond L. Volpe points out, the term "curtains guilt: the anger that should be directed inward finds a convenient external object.
When the matron of the orphanage learns that Joe is supposedly a Negro, she immediately decides that they must find people to adopt him. Thus Joe becomes the adopted son of Mr. McEachern -- a stern, Calvinistic farmer with whom he lives for thirteen years. Although his five years in the orphanage make Joe an alienated child whose memories are filled with unhappiness and blurred ideas about being Negro, he is still an ignorant child in terms of religion.
He knew less about God than about work. He had seen work going on in the person of men with rakes and shovels about the playground six days each week, but God had only occ,i_rred on Sunday. And then -- save for the concomitant orde~l of cleanliness -- it was music that pleased the ear and words that did not trouble the ear at all -- on the whole, pleasant, even if a little tiresome. (p. 126)
In order to let innocent Joe "learn soon that the two abomina- tions are sloth and idle thinking! and / the two virtues are work and the fear of God," (p. 126) McEachern wants to force the lessons of the Bible into the child's mind with the aid of a whip. Joe resists and asserts his individuality, gradually becoming, in his opposition, as extreme and rigid as a monk. When he is beaten, he looks "straight ahead, with a rapt, calm expression like a monk in a picture." (p. 131)
McEachern's religious views equate pleasure with evil and he imposes a violent tutelage on Joe. It is a harsh religion according to which a man cannot alter his destiny, but "since no one can tell whether he is a member of the Elect, all must lead holy and pious lives, acknowledging God's supreme power and obeying His commands."9
Reinterpreted by such a person as McEachern, this means that a man must lead a life of self-flagellation or self-crucifixion.
"A victim of this life-denying concept, McEachern, in his turn, creates victim.10
Under McEachern's tutelage, Joe "imbibes more from the training of his foster father than he realizes. He becomes a man who not only inherits racial concepts but religious concepts, which "enshroud the individual's attitude toward life, making him incapable of responding naturally to the full scope of human experience.”12
Joe's affair with Bobbie "the unattractive prostitute who doubles as waitress in the backstreet restaurant,1113 illustrates the effect of McEachern's Calvinistic education on him and his inability to respond to life naturally. Joe is an "idealist and vaults from one absolute to another. He resists the
impurity, the evil, the terrors and pain that are all part of human life.” 14 When he first hears about menstruation, his reaction isso violent that he is impelled to kill and examine a female sheep and dip his hand into the blood. (p. 164) At the first meeting with Bobbie, Joe vomits when he knows what Bobbie means by saying she is "sick." (p. 165) As an idealist, Joe envisions "woman as inviolable perfection and beauty."15 As a victim of his past, his reactions are always violent and extreme. His reaction to Bobbie's "sickness" is associated with his memory of the bloody female sheep.
At fourteen when he had confronted a Negro girl whom he and his friends had procured, his reaction had also been much the same.
For him, sex is connected with a desire to vomit, probably a result of his experience in the orphanage. "There was something in him trying to get out, like when he had used to think of toothpaste." (p. 137)
The influence of McEachern's Calvinistic education on Joe is also revealed by Joe's awareness of degradation and sin in relation to his affair with Bobbie. In order to meet her he steals out of his second floor room in the McEachern house, with the help of a rope which to him becomes a symbol of his sin.
Sometimes, with the old couple snoring in the room beneath, when he lifted out the silent rope he would think of the paradox . Sometimes he thought about telling her, of showing her where he kept hidden the implement of his sin. (p. 166)
When Joe discovers he is not the only man who visits Bobbie in her room he tries to transform himself according to the image of the other men. In longing for social acceptance, he begins to smoke, wear a hat and drink, turning himself into "a variety of the city man that he was to be for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, Joe only knows that his love is sinful but not that it is based upon illusion and ignorance, which leads to his tragedy later. He is deeply sincere in his love and, because he wishes to tell Bobbie everything about himself, he tells her of the possibility of his having some Negro blood in him. Bobbie apparently is not too much affected by this, but it is through her that he is again made painfully aware of the problem of his race.
On the night of the dance when he strikes down McEachern, Bobbie blames Joe for the names that McEachern had called her. She says, "Bastard! Son of a bitch! Getting me into a jam, that always treated you like you were a white man. A white man!" (p. 189) And like the dietician, she takes refuge from her actual share in Joe's guilt by calling him "Nigger". She says, "He told me himself he was a nigger. The son of a bitch. Me f--ing for nothing a nigger son of a bitch that would get me in a jam with clodhopper police. At a clodhopper dance." (p. 190) It is a convenient way of shifting the burden of guilt entirely onto Joe, for simply by virtue of his Negro blood, he must be the wrongdoer in the eyes of bystanders. This reveals the compulsive force of the connotative meanings of the word "Negro" in determining social attitudes. It is as if a white woman has been cheated by a Negro man.
Bobbie's violent rejection of Joe cau~es his disillusionment and destroys his innocence. He has never thought that she would reject him:
He just stared at her, at the face which he had never seen before, saying quietly (whether aloud or not, he couid not have said) in a slow amazement: Why, I committed murder for her. I even stoie for her as if he had just heard of it, thought of it, been told that he had done it. (p. 189)
Bobbie leaves town with her bosses after they beat Joe up. For Joe, as for his grandfather, racial and religious concepts have become fused and "the loss of innocence, the sense of sin, provide a need to search for salvation,1117 which he tries to achieve by coming to terms with his identity. Thus he enters "the street", a period which lasts for fifteen years during which he leads a life of self-crucifixion.
In this period, Joe tries to deal with the racial aspect of his problem. He tries to identify himself with Negroes through a life of "sin;'a(moving from one place to another and from one woman to another. The significance of this episode is that it reveals that Joe has been raised as a white person in the South. He therefore inherits the same racial concepts as the whites. His
reactions reflect the influence of the connotative meanings of the word Negro. "He bedded with the women and paid them when he had the money, and when he did not have it he bedded anyway and then told them that he was Negro." (p. 196) Apparently, he regards inability to pay as a kind of inferiority of the Negro.
At the same time, he uses his claim to Negro blood as a means of hurting others. This also shows the connotative value of the word "Negro" to Joe. Once, he nearly kills a white prostitute who does not mind about his being part Negro. It makes him sick for two years. According to Charles H. Nilon, "The sickness that affects Joe is the revulsion that the Southern white man
may feel when he knows that his women have broken the racial sex taboo.” 18 The racial concepts and sexual desire fused together taboo" make Joe's behavior more violent and paradoxical.
Joe's efforts to be a Negro "in the street" are unsuccessful. He lived:
As man and wife with a woman who resembled an ebony carving. At night he would lie in bed beside her, beginning to breathe deep and hard. He would do it deliberately, feeling, even watching, his white chest arch deeper and deeper within his ribcage, trying to breathe into himself the dark odor, the dark and inscrutable thinking and being of Negroes; with each suspiration trying to expel from himself the white blood and the white thinking and being, and all the while his nostril at the odor which he was t ry ing to make his own would whiten and tauten, his whole being writhe and strain with physical outrage and spiritual denial. (p. 197)
During this period, he tricks white men into calling him a Negro in order to beat them or to be beaten; in the same way, he
fights Negroes who call him white. "He apparently believes all of the things about Negroes that other white people believe about them. He believes these things about himself. This is what causes him to have so much difficulty in trying to be a Negro." While he is struggling to establish his identity, he meets Miss Joanna Burden with whom he keeps a sexual relationship for three years.
Joe's relationship with Miss Burden is divided into three phases, each of which brings Joe closer to himself. He gradually
comes to know himself through her. One of the most significant incidents occurs when he is thinking of leaving her and entering "the street" again. She comes to the cabin where she has permitted him to live and tells him about her family. "At the end of the first phase Joe learns that Miss Burden's problem is similar to his own. He learns this through the story of her family's existence' in the South against the background of the relationships that they have begun."20
Joanna's grandfather, Calvin Burden, was the son of a Unitarian minister. He fled from home to California at the age of twelve, became a Roman Catholic, and lived in a monastery for a year. Ten years later, on his marriage, he denied allegiance to the Catholic church which he considered full of frog-eating slaveholders. Although he could not read the Bible in English, he started to read it in Spanish as soon as Joanna's father could walk. When the child was five, Calvin Burden killed a man in an argument over slavery and said to his son: "I'll learn you to hate two things. I'll frail the tar out of you. And these things are hell and slaveholders." (p. 212) Thus, as a child, Joanna's father is imbued with religious and racial concepts which influence him deeply. And Joanna's grandfather's real attitude towards the Negro is made clear through a talk to his son:
Damn, lowbuilt black folks: low:built because of the weight of the wrath of God, black because of the sin of human bondage staining their blood and flesh ....
But we done freed them now, both black and white alike. They'll bleach out now. In a hundred years they will be white folks again. (p. 217)
The connotative meanings of the word Negro are well illustrated by this statement, that is, the black skin of the Negro is the stigma which God has put on them and it is the symbol of their inferiority. Burden's reasoning is interesting. The sin he refers to was committed by white people, but God has punished the Negro. Perhaps this is for having submitted to slavery and thus not only sharing in sin but being the cause of it. That is, the Negro is doubly guilt and therefore has been turned black and made lowbuilt. He believes that the Negro must be freed so that both black and white can be washed clean of their sin. That he considers white people superior is obvious when he implies that the Negro, once washed clean of his sin, will eventually turn white. Thus, it is not a sense of justice and equality that motivates him to oppose slavery, but a reli- gious concept of the "sin of human bondage," which, in some strange and contradictory way, is not based on belief in human equality.
Joanna's father is strongly influenced by his father and his attitude toward the Negro is similar. He not only inherits his father's racial and religious concepts but also passes them on to his daughter. Once he takes her to the grave where her grandfather and her half-brother are buried and says:
Remember this. Your grandfather and brother are lying there, murdered not by one white man but by the curse which God put on a whole race before your grandfather or your brother or me or you were even thought of. A race doomed and cursed to be forever and ever a part of the white race's doom and curse for its sin. (p. 221)
Again, the guilt of the Negro is implied, and it is the "white man's burden" to free the black man and thus himself. Without comprehending the sermon, the young and confused Joanna starts to worry about her life which, she thinks, will always be connected with "the black shadow," as she puts it: "I thought of all the children coming forever and ever into the world, white, with the black shadow already falling upon them before they drew breath. And I seemed to see the black shadow in the shape of a cross." {p. 221)
Gradually Joanna becomes a victim of her father's particular form of religious and racial concepts. She interprets life in terms of these concepts. She remembers and believes what her father told her: "You must struggle, rise. But in order to risef you must raise the shadow with you. But you can never lift it to your level. But escape it you can not. The curse of the black race is God's curse." (p. 222)
After finishing her education, Joanna follows her father's admonition and devotes her whole life to the work of "improving Negroes," leading a life of self-immolation in hostile surroundings. Through the story of Miss Burden, Joe learns how a particular concept of the Negro and of justice for the Negro came to dominate her life and her fa~ily's life and kept her from leading the life that a ' woman should lead. Miss Burden's life is an illustration of the compulsive force of the connotations of the word Negro.21
That is, through Miss Burden, Joe gets a clearer insight into his own problem which is somewhat like hers, for both their lives have been shaped by a certain concept of the Negro. His reaction to the story is expressed by his question: "Just when do men that have different blood stop hating one another?" (p. 218) It is not merely a question but an embodiment of his complicated and contradictory psychological make-up which makes him an unusual and alienated person. The more Joe learns about the source of his problem, the more intense his inner conflict becomes. For him, Negro and sin are equivalent, whereas for Joanna, salvation is connected with the Negro. Thus, Joe cannot decide to be either a white or a black, which leads to his violent rejection of Joanna's proposal in the third period.
Miss Burden proposes that he take part in the work that she is doing for Negroes, that is, she asks him to take a stand and identify himself as Negro. His response is: "To school .... A nigger school. Me? Tell niggers that I am a nigger too?" (pp. 241-242) Joe's absolutism prevents him from making a choice. He also realizes that he could live a life of ease and security with Joanna, but he says: "If I give in now, I will deny all the thirty years that I have lived to make me what I chose to be." (p. 232) ·Although "this is the only time that Joe says that he is what he is by choice,1122 he is still not clear about what he has really chosen to be, and this is the center of his problem.
After rejecting Joanna's suggestion, Joe is compelled by Joanna to pray with her. According to Edmond Volpe,
Both are volitionless victims of their absolutism, and violence is inevitable....He will not kneel and pray , but he cannot leave the room; he must stand and watch her. He cannot become Negro as she demands,
...His tension increases, and the need to strike out at the embodiment of all the forces that have tortured him becomes obsessive.23 When he refuses to kneel with Joanna in prayer, she tries to shoot him. The ancient pistol fails to go off, Joe slashes her throat and then sets the house on fire.
Thus Joe starts to approach the end of his life of self- crucifixion. Unlike murderers trying to escape, "he invites chase and capture by appearing in a Negro church, where he utters his final violent repudiation of the concepts -- religion and race that molded and destroyed him.”24 In the church, he is regarded as a devil. When he rushes into the church and stands in front of the worshippers, one of the women screams, "It's the devil! It's Satan himself!'' (p. 282) Joe is the image of Satan to Negroes as well as to whites. Doc Hines curses him as "a devil" and when McEachern beats Joe, he thinks that he sees Satan in the boy who resists his religious indoctrination. "He could not have been surprised at that, since it was not that child's face which he
was concerned with: It was the face of Satan, which he knew as well." (p. 178) That he is the image of Satan to both races represents the core of Joe's problem, for he can be neither white nor black and so cannot be accepted by either race. It is not merely a symbol of Joe's tragedy as a putative mulatto, but a symbol of the social tragedy which the South brings about. He is whatthe society of the South has created, and, as its victim, he is regarded not as a human being, but a Satan whom both races hate and fear.
After disturbing the service of the Negro Church, Joe goes on his journey of supposed flight and appears in Mottstown a week later. When he is recognized, instead of trying to escape, he admits that he is Joe Christmas himself and is thus arrested.
Doc Hines' insane fear and hatred of the captive Joe is completely uncovered in Mottstown, where he and Mrs. Hines have lived for twenty-eight years since Joe was adopted by McEachern. As soon as he recognizes the captive, he breaks through the people around Joe and cries, "Kill the bastard! Ki11 him. Ki11 him." (p. 302) While Joe is in jail in Mottstown, Doc Hines goes to town every day "to get the folks worked up to lynch Joe!." (pp. 325-326) In haranguing the populace to lynch his grandson, Doc Hines, too, shows how racial and religious concepts can come to dominate and victimize a man, making him totally irrational and finally evil.
When Joe Christmas is brought captive from Mottstown to Jefferson, he knows his final day is coming. On the way to the court, he escapes and flees to Mr. Hightower's home, where he is killed and castrated by Percy Grimm, a fanatical racist, "thus
adding one more victim to the South's burden of guilt."25
Though this violent end brings some kind of peace to Joe by terminating his painful and tormented life-long struggle to establish his identity, it actually solves nothing. When he dies, Joe is perhaps a little clearer about the forces that shaped his life, but he still has not resolved the ultimate conflict as to whether he is black or white.
Faulkner's choice of Joe as his main character to illustrate the racial problem in the South is particularly effective. Joe does not suffer because he is black. His skin is white. He suffers because of the connotative meanings associated with being Negro, which are applicable to him only because he may have some Negro blood. This at once reveals the absurdity and the cruelty of the situation. In trying to solve the "black or white" conflict within himself, it is the Negro blood in him, not the white blood, that Joe tries to come to terms with. He psychologi- cally and spiritually wants to reject the Negro, who is an inseparable part of that society. Faulkner seems to suggest that this kind of attitude can lead only to death.
FOOTNOTES
1
See Charles H. Nilon, Faulkner and The Negro, University
of Colorado Studies Series in Language and Literature No. 8 (Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 1962), for an extensive
treatment of this topic.
2
(New York: A Division of Farrar , Straus and Giroux, Inc., 1974), p. 20, p. 155.
3
Jean Fagan Yellin, The Intricate Knot (New York: New York University Press, 1972), p. 8.
4
William Faulkner, Light in August (New York: The Modern
Library, 1959), p. 326.
5
Volpe, p161
6
Ibid., p. 162.
7
Nilon, pp. 77-78.
8
Volpe, 162-3
9
williatn Ro~e Benlt, The Reader's Encyclopedia (New York:
Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1965), p. 160.
10
Volpe, p. 162.
II
Cleanth Brooks, The Hidden God (New Haven and London:
Yale University Press, 1963), p. 38.
12
Volpe, p. 173.
13
Ibid., p. 167.
14
Ibid., p. 166.
15
Ibid., p. 166.
16N" l
1 on, p. 79.
17
Ibid., pp. 79-80.
18N.l
1 on, P• 86.
.19Ibid., p. 86.
20
Ibid., p. 82.
21
Ibid., p. 83.
'
22
Ibid., p. 84.
23
Volpe, pp. 171-172.
24
Ibid., p. 172.
25
willis Wager, American Literature (New York: New York
University Press, 1968), p. 236.
L I S T OF WORKS CONSULTED
Baldwin, James. Nobody Knows My Name. New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1963.
,
Benet, William Rose. The Reader's Encyclopedia. New York: Thomas
Y. Crowell Company, 1965.
Brooks, Cleanth. The Hidden God. New Haven and Lond~n: Yale
University Press, 1963.
Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom! Toronto: Random House, Inc., 1964.
Light in August. New York: The Modern
Library, 1959.
Griffin, John Howard. Black Like Me. New York: The New American Library, Inc., 1960.
Kirk, Robert W. and Klotz, Marvin. Faulkner's People. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1963.
Li Wenjun ed. Faulkner Pinglun Ji. Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Publishers, 1980.
Nilon, Charles~. Faulkner and The Negro. University of Colorade
Studies Series in Language and Literature No. 8. Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 1962.
O'Brien, John ed. Interviews with Black Writers. New York; Liveright, 1973.
Volpe, Edmond L. A Reader's Guide to William Faulkner. New York: A Division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc., 1974.
Wager, Willis. American Literature. New York: New York University Press, 1968.
Yellin, Fagan Jean. The Intricate Knot. New York: New York University Press, 1972.
Zhu Yan. Meiguo Wenxue Pinglun Ji. Taipei: LianJing Publishing Co., 1976
