As many critics have noted, Ernest J. Gaines's novels comprise an extended treatise on black male identity in the United States. Yet the novels do not produce one static viewpoint; instead, they demonstrate Gaines's struggle with the question of black masculinity over the course of his lifetime. His earlier novels, such as Catherine Carmier, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, and In My Father's House, represent the difficulties black men face while constructing their masculine identity in the face of structural and individual racism. But with each new novel, Gaines increasingly focuses on his vision for a different black masculinity based in social negotiation. A Gathering of Old Men, for example, presents black men banding together to demand their manhood against white oppression and racism. Gaines's latest novel, A Lesson Before Dying, offers an even more cohesive vision of black manhood and its potential for radical change. The title of Gaines's latest novel stands enigmatically over the text. The reader opens A Lesson Before Dying with several questions to answer: What lesson? Who teaches the lesson? Who learns the lesson? Who dies? Within the first few chapters, these enigmas seem to be easily resolved: the lesson teaches how to be a man, and it will be taught to Jefferson by Grant Wiggins before Jefferson dies in the electric chair. These easy answers, however, prove not to be the whole story, as Gaines problematizes the question of manhood throughout the text. (1) Gaines reproduces rural southern life in the 1940s, then sets up the real issue: what does it mean to be a black man? In answering this question, critics of the novel have divided into two camps: those who see Gaines's answer as defining an individualist masculinity and those who see him as promoting a communal sense of identity. (2) However, critics on both sides must contend with the other side's formulation. This essay will argue that the tension between the individual and the community is vital to Gaines's construction of black masculinity, as he offers us a vision in which individuals must socially construct their individual identities through the locus of communal connections. The traditional definitions given in the novel's first few chapters, definitions rooted in an individualist, phallocentric model, do not work for the African-American male; as bell hooks notes, they do "not interrogate the conventional construction of patriarchal masculinity or question the extent to which black men have historically internalized this norm" (89). In an attempt to reverse these ideologies, Gaines defines a different black masculinity in A Lesson Before Dying, a communal, socially constructed masculinity. This new masculinity is a more dynamic system in which reciprocity and responsibility play major roles. Given a South that dehumanizes and oppresses African Americans through the legacy of slavery and the oppression of Jim Crow, Gaines realizes that African-American males must define their manhood against a white patriarchy determined to emasculate them. John Roberts argues, "Because his fiction focuses on the peculiar plight of black Americans in the South, Gaines must consider an additional level of significance--the strong communal bonds characteristic of southern black folk culture" (110). Gaines, however, is concerned with the transcendence of this plight even as he recognizes the inherent cultural and historical contingencies that shape human interaction. Gaines suggests that African-American males define their individual masculinity through a collective enterprise that involves the communal bonds of which Roberts speaks; as bell hooks notes, "Changing representations of black men must be a collective task" (113). REPRESENTING THE TRADITION "I was not there, yet I was there": Grant Wiggins opens the narration of A Lesson Before Dying with this enigmatic sentence, one which, in a sense, encapsulates our reading experience as well as Grant's predicament (Gaines 3). …

中文翻译：

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“让他成为一个男人”：欧内斯特·J·盖因斯的《临终前夕》中的黑人男子气概和共同身份

正如许多批评家所指出的那样，欧内斯特·J·盖因斯的小说在美国包含了关于黑人男性身份的扩展论述。然而，小说并没有产生一种静态的观点。相反，他们展示了盖恩斯一生中与黑人男性气质有关的斗争。他的早期小说，例如凯瑟琳·卡米尔（Catherine Carmier），《简·皮特曼小姐的自传》和《我的父亲的房子》，表现了黑人在面对结构性和个人种族主义时建构男性身份时所面临的困难。但是随着每本新小说的出现，盖因斯越来越多地关注他对基于社会谈判的黑人男性气概的看法。例如，《老年人聚会》中，黑人聚集在一起，要求男子气概反对白人的压迫和种族主义。盖恩斯的最新小说，《临终前的教训》为黑人男子气概及其带来根本变化的可能性提供了更加紧密的联系。盖恩斯的最新小说的标题笼罩在案文的上方。读者打开“染前课”，并回答几个问题：什么课？谁教这节课？谁上这堂课？谁死了？在最初的几章中，这些谜题似乎很容易解决：该课程讲授如何成为一个男人，在杰斐逊死于电椅之前，格兰特·威金斯（Grant Wiggins）会教给杰斐逊。但是，由于盖因斯在整个案文中都对男子气概的问题提出了质疑，因此这些简单的答案并非全部。（1）盖恩斯再现了1940年代的乡村南部生活，然后提出了一个真正的问题：成为黑人意味着什么？在回答这个问题时，小说的评论家分为两个阵营：那些认为盖恩斯的回答定义了个人主义男子气概的人，以及那些认为盖恩斯在促进公共认同感的人。（2）但是，双方的批评者必须与对方的表述抗衡。本文将论证，个人和社区之间的紧张关系对盖因斯的黑人男性气概至关重要，因为他为我们提供了一个愿景，即个人必须通过公共联系的场所在社会上构建其个人身份。小说前几章给出的传统定义植根于以个人主义，以人为中心的模式中，这些定义不适用于非裔美国人。正如钟形钩所指出的那样，尽管他意识到影响人类互动的内在文化和历史偶然性，但他仍对这种困境的超越感到担忧。盖因斯建议非洲裔美国人男性通过一个集体企业来定义自己的男性气质，这种企业涉及罗伯茨所说的公共纽带。正如钟形钩指出的那样，“改变黑人形象必须是一项集体任务”（113）。代表传统“我当时不在，但我在那里”：格兰特·威金斯用这个神秘的句子打开了《临终前的教训》的叙述，从某种意义上说，它概括了我们的阅读经历和格兰特的困境（盖恩斯3） 。… 尽管他意识到影响人类互动的内在文化和历史偶然性，但他仍对这种困境的超越感到担忧。盖因斯建议非洲裔美国人男性通过一个集体企业来定义自己的男性气质，这种企业涉及罗伯茨所说的公共纽带。正如钟形钩指出的那样，“改变黑人形象必须是一项集体任务”（113）。代表传统“我当时不在，但我在那里”：格兰特·威金斯用这个神秘的句子打开了《临终前的教训》的叙述，从某种意义上说，它概括了我们的阅读经历和格兰特的困境（盖恩斯3） 。… 盖因斯建议非洲裔美国人男性通过一个集体企业来定义自己的男性气质，这种企业涉及罗伯茨所说的公共纽带。正如钟形钩指出的那样，“改变黑人形象必须是一项集体任务”（113）。代表传统“我当时不在，但我在那里”：格兰特·威金斯用这个神秘的句子打开了《临终前的教训》的叙述，从某种意义上说，它概括了我们的阅读经历和格兰特的困境（盖恩斯3） 。… 盖因斯建议非洲裔美国人男性通过一个集体企业来定义自己的男性气质，这种企业涉及罗伯茨所说的公共纽带。正如钟形钩指出的那样，“改变黑人形象必须是一项集体任务”（113）。代表传统“我当时不在，但我在那里”：格兰特·威金斯用这个神秘的句子打开了《临终前的教训》的叙述，从某种意义上说，它概括了我们的阅读经历和格兰特的困境（盖恩斯3） 。… 格兰特·威金斯（Grant Wiggins）用这个神秘的句子打开了《临终前的教训》的叙述，从某种意义上说，它概括了我们的阅读经验以及格兰特的困境（盖恩斯3）。… 格兰特·威金斯（Grant Wiggins）用这个神秘的句子打开了《临终前的教训》的叙述，从某种意义上说，它概括了我们的阅读经验以及格兰特的困境（盖恩斯3）。…