Mary Agnes LeFabre, the Creole teacher at Samson Plantation in Ernest J. Gaines's The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, "comes from a long line of Creoles back there in New Orleans" that eventually moved after the Civil War to the community called Creole Place (166). Gaines does not provide the specific location of Creole Place in the novel, but one can assume that the community that Gaines describes, one where the "people ... did everything for themselves" and did not let anyone, no matter how white, enter into the community, has a real-world antecedent (167). Quite possibly, that antecedent could be Frilot Cove, the community Vivian is from in Gaines's 1993 novel A Lesson Before Dying. Thadious M. Davis observes another possibility for Creole Place's real life inspiration, the Isle Brevelle Creole community on Cane River near Natchitoches, Louisiana ("Headlands" 7). While Gaines's Creole community may perchance be drawn from the Isle Brevelle community, we know for a fact that the Creoles that Lyle Saxon writes about in his novel Children of Strangers have their origins in the Creole population along Cane River. This essay explores Saxon's novel in relation to Gaines's first novel, Catherine Carmier. Gaines has not mentioned whether or not he ever read Saxon's text when working on his own, but that does not change the importance of reading the two novels in conjunction with one another. They appear less than thirty years apart, and both deal with a unique aspect of social structure in Louisiana, the separation of communities into four distinct categories: white, Cajun, Creole, and black. Davis argues that the presence of a Creole community--for our purposes referring to individuals of mixed Spanish, French, Native American, and African ancestry--where individuals of African and African-American descent were free during slavery and had the opportunity for social mobility, provided a possible exemplar for race relations in the United States during the nineteenth century; however, after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and the gradual Americanization of the new territory, and specifically New Orleans, Louisiana's possible example faded into the darkness (Southscapes 186). Saxon's depiction of the Isle Brevelle Creole community borders on stereotypical and patronizing. While he tries to provide an accurate portrayal of the community and its inhabitants, he fails to humanize them fully. However, he does provide a much more sympathetic representation than he originally did in his short story "Cane River," which appeared in 1926. In this story, Saxon depicts Susie stereotypically as "a wild nigger girl" and "an untamed savage" (225). As well, he places himself in the black community by inserting "we" into the narrative. In Children of Strangers, Saxon's representation of the community becomes more sympathetic and humanizing, but at points he does revert back to pervasive oppressive images, especially in his description of Henry Tyler talking with Paul Guy. Henry Tyler becomes "like an animal trying to tell a man it is thirsty" (Children 169). Though clearly Children of Strangers is a flawed novel, I argue that we should read the two novels together to help us understand the cultural milieu in which both authors wrote, specifically the flattening of racial binaries during the period, and to understand each author's presentation of the increasing modernity of rural Louisiana during the early-to-mid part of the twentieth century. In April 1923, Saxon made his first visit to Melrose Plantation on the Cane River. Invited there by Cammie Garrett Henry, whose husband inherited the plantation in 1898, Saxon would make frequent trips to the artist colony that Henry established in order to compose what would eventually become Children of Strangers, a novel that took him close to fourteen years to complete. Known for his newspaper writing and nonfiction works, Saxon attained celebrity status both at Melrose and in New Orleans writing about the Crescent City's history, the flood of 1927, Jean Lafitte, and local folklore. …

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“他们希望我们成为克里奥尔人……之间没有中间人”：欧内斯特·J·盖恩斯的凯瑟琳·卡米尔和莱尔·萨克森的《陌生人之子》中的克里奥尔语

欧内斯特·J·盖恩斯的《简·皮特曼小姐自传》中Samson Plantation的克里奥尔语老师玛丽·阿格尼斯·勒法布雷（Mary Agnes LeFabre）“来自新奥尔良的克里奥尔人排成一排，后来在南北战争之后搬到了一个名为克里奥尔语的社区（Creole Place（ 166）。盖恩斯没有提供小说中克里奥尔广场的具体位置，但可以假定盖恩斯描述的社区是“人们……为自己做了一切”的社区，无论白人多么白人都不允许任何人进入进入社区，有一个现实世界的前身（167）。Vivian的前身很可能是弗里洛特·科夫（Frilot Cove），来自盖恩斯（Gaines）1993年的小说《临死前的教训》中的薇薇安（Vivian）社区。Thadious M. Davis看到了Creole Place现实生活灵感的另一种可能性，路易斯安那州纳奇托什附近的甘蔗河上的小岛布雷弗勒克里奥尔人社区（“岬角” 7）。尽管盖恩斯的克里奥尔人社区可能来自Isle Brevelle社区，但我们知道一个事实，就是莱尔·萨克森在他的小说《陌生的孩子》中所写的克里奥尔人起源于甘蔗河沿岸的克里奥尔人。本文探讨了撒克逊人的小说与盖恩斯的第一本小说凯瑟琳·卡米尔（Catherine Carmier）的关系。盖恩斯没有提到他自己工作时是否曾阅读过撒克逊人的著作，但这并没有改变将两本小说相互阅读的重要性。它们相距不到三十年，并且都涉及路易斯安那州社会结构的独特方面，即将社区分为四个不同的类别：白人，印第安人，克里奥尔人和黑人。戴维斯辩称，克里奥尔人社区的存在（就我们的目的而言，是指西班牙裔，法国裔，美洲原住民和非洲血统混合的个人），那里的非洲裔和非裔美国人在奴役期间是自由的，并有机会参与社会生活。流动性为19世纪美国的种族关系提供了可能的范例；但是，在1803年路易斯安那州购买和新领土（特别是新奥尔良）逐渐美国化之后，路易斯安那州的可能例子逐渐淡入了黑暗（Southscapes 186）。撒克逊人对布雷维勒克里奥尔岛社区的描写以刻板印象和光顾为边界。当他试图准确描述社区及其居民时，他没有充分地将其人性化。然而，与他在1926年出现的短篇小说“坎恩河”中的作风相比，他确实提供了更多的同情。在这个故事中，撒克逊人将苏茜刻板地描述为“野性的黑鬼女孩”和“野蛮的野蛮人”（225） 。同样，他通过在叙事中插入“我们”将自己置于黑人社区。在《陌生人的孩子》中，撒克逊人对社区的表现变得更加同情和人性化，但是在某些时候，他的确回到了无处不在的压迫性形象，尤其是在他对亨利·泰勒与保罗·盖伊交谈的描述中。亨利·泰勒（Henry Tyler）变得“像试图告诉男人口渴的动物”（儿童169）。尽管很明显，《陌生人的孩子》是一部有缺陷的小说，我认为，我们应该一起阅读这两本小说，以帮助我们理解两位作者所写的文化环境，特别是在此期间种族二元化的扁平化，并理解每位作家对路易斯安那早期乡村现代性日益增强的表现。到二十世纪中叶。1923年4月，撒克逊人首次访问了甘蔗河上的梅尔罗斯种植园。萨米森受坎米·加勒特·亨利（Cammie Garrett Henry）的邀请，亨利的丈夫于1898年继承了这个种植园。撒克逊人经常去亨利建立的艺术家殖民地旅行，以撰写最终成为《陌生人的孩子》的小说，这部小说使他花了将近十四年的时间才完成。以他的报纸写作和非小说作品而闻名，撒克逊人在梅尔罗斯（Melrose）和新奥尔良（New Orleans）都享有名人地位，他撰写了有关新月城市的历史，1927年的洪灾，让·拉菲特（Jean Lafitte）和当地民俗的文章。…