《大亨小傳》、《旭日東昇》與《爵士樂》中的爵士樂、爵士年代與種族政治

爵士樂自一九一零年代盛行以來便廣為大眾喜愛，更主宰了一九二零年代的風潮，在當時代，不僅許多白人音樂家挪用源自於美國黑人文化的爵士樂，白人小說家也廣納爵士樂為寫作題材。本論文援引爵士樂的歷史與文化研究理論，閱讀史考特．費茲傑羅《大亨小傳》、厄尼斯特．海明威《旭日東昇》與童妮．摩里森《爵士樂》三本美國小說對爵士樂、爵士年代與黑人的描繪，探究這三位作家作品中的爵士樂意象所牽涉的種族議題與社會現象。本文主張《大亨小傳》與《旭日東昇》皆以白人視角呈現爵士樂、爵士年代與種族議題，且皆彰顯白人優越主義、邊緣化非裔美國人；而《爵士樂》以黑人視角回顧二十世紀初期非裔美國人在白人壓迫下的歷史經驗，並重申爵士樂對非裔美國人的文化與歷史之重要性。本論文首章爬梳爵士樂的歷史，並探討爵士樂的發展如何受到二十世紀初期美國種族政治的影響。本章指出，白人在第一次世界大戰後萌生的原始主義崇拜、對文化他者的興趣以及對黑人情慾化的想像皆是他們對爵士樂著迷的原因。第二章以《大亨小傳》與《旭日東昇》文本中對爵士樂、爵士年代與黑人角色的呈現開始閱讀，揭露兩本小說的種族歧視與意識型態。兩本小說在描寫第一次世界大戰後紙醉金迷年代之際，同時顯露種族他者和種族雜交帶給美國白人的焦慮與恐懼。值得探究的是，在兩本小說中，白人皆賦予爵士樂一種原始想像，並將爵士樂形塑成為象徵燈紅酒綠的一九二零年代的都市休閒娛樂。第三章則討論《爵士樂》作為摩里森對爵士年代的重寫，強調爵士樂不僅體現非裔美國人在白人壓迫下的歷史記憶，同時也反映非裔美國人在當時代的渴望、失去、苦痛，以及其他社會悲歌。除了暗示爵士樂和黑人城市經驗之間相互影響又密不可分的關係，摩里森更將爵士樂的音樂特色以文本呈現，彰顯爵士樂為非裔美國人的文化遺產。在展現爵士樂對非裔美國人重要之歷史意義之時，摩里森的作品也重建在白人爵士年代文學中廣為忽視的黑人的爵士年代經驗。本論文末章總結，《爵士樂》既是摩里森對爵士年代的重寫，也是對白人文學中的爵士年代的批評。重新閱讀三本小說，可以讀出費茲傑羅和海明威作品反映的種族關係、白人的種族意識，以及白人對爵士樂的黑人想像與挪用；不同於費茲傑羅和海明威的作品，摩里森的作品則揭露在文化霸權下遭受埋沒的歷史，除了採用爵士樂的音樂特色作為其敘事美學，也以更多元的面向呈現一九二零年代在紐約哈林區的爵士樂。

關鍵字

《大亨小傳》；《旭日東昇》；《爵士樂》；爵士樂；爵士年代；種族政治；原始主義

並列摘要

Jazz, an African American-originated music popular among blacks and whites alike ever since the 1910s, has been appropriated by not only white musicians but white American writers as well. This thesis adopts a historical approach combined with various cultural theories and criticisms to the study of jazz and the jazz age in relation to the racial politics in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, and Toni Morrison’s Jazz, three well-known novels written about the Jazz Age. It argues that both The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises portray jazz, jazz age, and racial issues from the perspectives of white Americans, demonstrate white supremacy, and marginalize the blacks, whereas Jazz, written decades later, problematizes the portrayals of jazz, jazz age, and racial matters in the previous novels. Chapter One of this thesis investigates jazz’s history and the ways by which racial politics before and during the 1920s influenced the development of jazz. Through historicizing jazz, this chapter seeks to account for the underlying ideologies of the white’s appropriation of jazz so as to conduct a more complex discussion of the representations of jazz and blacks in the second and third chapters. As Chapter One surveys, the white’s fascination with jazz in the early twentieth century stemmed from the cult of primitivism, preoccupation with cultural Otherness, and erotic figurations of blackness. Chapter Two turns to literary representations of jazz and non-white people, particularly blacks, in The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises to uncover the racial ideology in the two novels’ shaping of their white visions of jazz and jazz age. It argues that both novels reveal white Americans’ anxieties about racial Others and fear of miscegenation in the early twentieth century, and that jazz in both novels are endowed with primitive assumptions and presented as a symbol of urban leisure that characterizes the era of excess, pleasure, and sensuality. Chapter Three focuses on Morrison’s rewriting of the Jazz Age in Jazz, arguing that jazz not only embodies the black’s ancestral memories and buried histories under white oppression, but also reflects the personal longings, loss, pain, and the social ethos of black Americans in the 1920s. By incorporating jazz into the narrative and suggesting the interactive and inseparable relationship between jazz and black urban experiences, Morrison not only reclaims jazz’s black heritage but also reconstructs the black historical experiences before and in the 1920s that have been largely overlooked in white-authored literature. The conclusion maintains that Morrison’s Jazz can be regarded as a revision as well as a critique of the Jazz Age in white literature. Whereas Fitzgerald and Hemingway demonstrate the white’s racial concerns and appropriate jazz’s presumable vitality and sensuality for their depiction of the epoch’s spirit, Morrison unearths the oppressive structures in the historical context, uses jazz’s musical features as her aesthetic paradigm, and presents a multi-dimensional portrayal of jazz in Harlem.

並列關鍵字

The Great Gatsby ； The Sun Also Rises ； Jazz ； jazz ； Jazz Age ； racial politics ； primitivism

參考文獻

Bederman, Gail. “Theodore Roosevelt: Manhood, Nation, and ‘Civilization’.” Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1996. 170-215.

Berman, Ronald. “The Great Gatsby and the Twenties.” The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ed. Ruth Prigozy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 79-94.

Blake, Jody. Le Tumulte noir: Modernist Art and Popular Entertainment in Jazz-Age Paris, 1900-1930. PA: The Pennsylvania University Press, 1999.

Breitwieser, Mitchell. “Jazz Fractures: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Epochal Representation.” American Literary History 12.3 (2000): 359-381.

Chang, Hsiao-ling. Racial and Sexual Others in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. MA Thesis, NTU, 2003.

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《大亨小傳》、《旭日東昇》與《爵士樂》中的爵士樂、爵士年代與種族政治

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