兰斯顿.休斯的短篇小说“神圣的保证”引发了当代批评家们关于休斯对同性恋态度的种种争论。但值得关注的是,休斯是从第三人称有限全知视角来写作这部短篇小说的,仅仅展示了父亲约翰的心理活动,却没有涉及故事中其他人物的心理活动。但由于约翰具有明显的同性恋恐慌症式的偏见,好妄加判断,对何为“正常”的美国家庭有着先入为主的观念,这些都有可能扭曲、模糊他观察戴利的场景的真实性,因此,我们不得不质疑约翰对其子戴利的种种想当然的猜测。其实这篇故事并非探讨戴利的同性恋状态,因为我们无从得知他到底是否同性恋,我们只能了解父亲的想法。极为直观的是,故事探讨的是在美国梦——白人的、中产阶级的、异性恋的——的观念中建立起评价何为家庭的绝对参数的种种偏见如何扭曲我们对现实的认知,使我们急于根据片面的、可疑的“证据”得出不可靠的结论。重要的是,休斯有时似乎爱和读者开玩笑,会故意在小说中运用明显有违常理的、幽默的细节;当这些细节被识别并解构时,会破坏它们所暗示的虚假的关于性的隐晦意义。最后,故事揭露了基于社会性别建构的偏颇观念会导致我们置身于反常的现实之中,并揭示了我们会出于某些固有成见而怀有厌恶情绪,进而得出没有依据的判断,草率行事。另外,因为约翰有着强烈渴望突显符合美国理想的家庭意象,以至于对自己的儿子形成偏见,缺乏尊重,这样,休斯的故事其实构成了对这一美国梦的控拆。 Langston Hughes short story “Sacred Assurances” sparked controversy among contemporary critics about Hughes attitude toward homosexuality. However, it is worth noting that Hughes wrote this short story from a limited third-person perspective, showing only the psychological activity of his father, John, but not about the psychological activities of other characters in the story. However, given John’s apparent prejudice of homophobic panic, he is good at judging the preconceived notion of “normal” families in the United States, all of which may distort and obscure the authenticity of his observation of Daly’s scene Therefore, we have to question John’s specious speculations about his son Daley. In fact, this story is not to discuss Daley’s homosexuality, because we have no way of knowing whether he is homosexual, we can only understand the father’s idea. It is quite intuitive that the story explores how the prejudices that have built up in the notion of American dreams - white, middle class, heterosexual - of the absolute parameters of what constitutes a family, distort our perception of reality, Make us eager to draw unreliable conclusions from unilateral and suspicious “evidence ”. Importantly, Hughes sometimes seems to love joking with readers, intentionally using apparently counterintuitive, humorous details in fiction; when these details are discerned and disfigured, they undermine what they suggest to be false about sexual vagueness significance. Finally, the story reveals that bias based on gender-based constructivism leads us to anomalous reality and reveals that we may, for some inherent prejudice, harbor disgust and lead to unjustified judgments, to act rashly . In addition, because of John’s strong desire to highlight a family image that is in line with the ideal of the United States, prejudice and lack of respect for his son, Hughes’s story actually constituted the control over the American dream.