摘要
童妮•摩里森的《所羅門之歌》描繪非裔美國人爭取自主權的血淚史以及塑造文化屬性時所面臨的種種難題。在這本小說中，摩里森藉著探討命名策略、飛翔之母題、以及非裔美國人之男性特質等議題，呈現迥異的歷史詮釋觀點，意欲演示另類的身分屬性認同策略。
本文將美國立國精神，即追求自由、幸福、及富庶之天賦人權，與非裔美國人在所謂的民主社會中實踐美國夢之歷程相互參照，意圖討論淪為社會他者的非裔美國人是否能因為立處邊緣而獨占利於批判主流價值的角度，為自己長期在種族歧視的社會中所遭受的抹黑解套。筆者分析乳仔（Milkman）即興開發自己姓氏的創意讀法的同時，探究非裔美國人如何能夠使用該族群特有的雙重語言（double-talk）協商其揉雜身分屬性的對立面，並將此富含創意的理念延伸至歷史重建層面，進而寫出另類家族史。此外，筆者在討論非裔美國人男性特質之造就以及其家庭問題時，檢視傳統心裡分析架構的可用性及缺失。雖然非裔美國人仍舊深受奴役制度遺留下來的沉重歷史包袱所苦，無法輕易重獲新生，但是他們應當藉由想像先祖，延異/義出堪用的身分認同政策。童妮•摩里森最終將史詩般的非裔美國人家族史以無解作結，旨於暗示族人，文化屬性的內涵應廣受論戰而保有獲得重新詮釋的契機。

Abstract
Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon deals with the African Americans’ history of fighting for self-independence, while exposing their difficulties in forming a viable cultural identity. Focusing on the politics of naming, the motif of flight, and the constitution of African American manhood, Toni Morrison in this novel aims to provide a different reading/writing of African American history whereupon her people can develop an alternative strategy of identification politics.
In this thesis, I problematize the notion of democracy–the ordained rights of human beings to pursuit liberty, happiness and prosperity–by articulating the idea of the American Dream with African Americans’ experiences of self-realization in a so-called democratic society. The purpose is to discuss whether or not African Americans can reverse and utilize their marginalized position as a critical stance for self-articulation to undo the racists’ misnaming on African American people. With a special emphasis on Milkman’s improvisation of the meanings of his family name, Dead, I discuss how the African Americans’ distinctive way of double-talk can facilitate them to negotiate the apparent dualism to inscribe their hybridized identity and how this kind of creativity can help them produce an alternative narrative of their traumatizing as well as truncated history. Also, I intend to analyze both the limitation and liability of conventional psychoanalytic paradigm which is blind to the specificity of African American manhood and the problems peculiar to African American family. Though it is an undeniable historical fact that the African Americans do suffer from the aftermath of plantation slavery, they should be able to empower themselves by re-imagining a collective ancestry as a strategy to formulate an applicable identification politics. While narrating an inspiring genealogy for her people, Toni Morrison wraps up this novel with an open ending. This arrangement suggests to her people that the significations of their cultural identities be opened to further contestation and re-definition.

Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Chapter One: Liberty, the Law and the Self-fashioning of African American Identity 10
Chapter Two: The Making of the Myth of the Flying Solomon 37
Chapter Three: Rewriting African American Manhood 59
Conclusion 82
Works Cited 84

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