布莱特·哈特(1836-1902)是较早地将华人移民写进自己文学作品的西部“乡土文学”作家。哈特笔下的华人形象总是神秘诡异,不可捉摸。尽管如此,他却认为华人身上有着连美国人都自愧不如的优点,而且还借助幽默含蓄的方式,对当时美国西部白人对华人的种族主义言行和华人所遭受的各种歧视和迫害,表达出了强烈地嘲讽和深切地同情,这些在排华浪潮甚嚣尘上的19世纪六七十年代的美国社会都是难能可贵的。然而,同许多同时代的美国作家一样,囿于历史文化语境和社会心理需求以及作家本人生活经历和特殊创作习惯,哈特笔下的华人形象仍不可避免地染上了夸张、歪曲、轻视甚至偏见的色彩,这些都共同构成了其内在的复杂性。 Brett Hart (1836-1902) was an early writer of Chinese “native literature” writing Chinese immigrants in his own literary works. The Chinese image written by Hart is always mysterious and unpredictable. Nonetheless, he considered that Chinese had the virtue of being ashamed of even Americans, but also used humorous and implicit ways to express their opinions on the racist words and persecution of the white race against the white people in the western United States at that time. Out of intense ridicule and deep sympathy, these are the American societies of the 1960s and 1970s, which were rampant in the exclusion of Chinese. However, like many contemporary American writers, due to historical and cultural contexts and social psychological needs, as well as the writer’s own life experiences and special writing habits, the image of Chinese depicted by Hart is still inevitably contracted, distorted, contemptuous, even The color of prejudice, all of which together make up the inherent complexity.