论文以《见闻札记》中的“印第安人的性格”和“波卡罗克特的菲利普”两篇散文为主要文本材料，探讨了欧文作品中被理想化的印第安人形象与美国民族身份建构的关系。第一部分关注了在美国文学民族主义的背景下印第安人作为本土文学材料的应用。第二部分聚焦于欧文对“高贵的野蛮人”这一传统浪漫主义文学形象的借用。第三部分讨论欧文构建印第安人只存在于文学中这一假象与其在美国民族认同形成过程中所起的促进作用。

本论文认为，欧文运用想象力赋予了印第安人热爱自由和独立、简朴、阳刚等似乎是由美国土地自然而然地培育出的，本属于爱国主义者和高贵野蛮人的性格特征，为的是构建一种有别于欧洲的充满“美国性”的民族身份；欧文把他们的事迹写成动人的传说，为的是给美国白人提供与欧洲相比毫不逊色的民族偶像和光荣历史；欧文制造了一种假象即印第安人已经或即将被文明摧毁，为的是合法化白人对印第安人历史、土地和性格的“继承”。

With “Traits of Indian Character” and “Philip of Pokanoket: An Indian Memoir”, two sketches collected in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. as its primary text materials, this paper discusses the relationship between the idealized Indian images in Washington Irving’s works and American national identity building. Part one focuses on Indians used as native literary materials under the historical background of American Literary Nationalism. Part two pays attention to Irving’s adoption of Romantic traditional image Noble Savage. Part three discusses the relationship between Irving’s construction of the false image that Indians exist only in literature and its contribution to American national identity formation.

The thesis argues that Irving endows Indians with characteristics possessed by nationalists and noble savage such as love of freedom and independence, simplicity and masculinity, which seem to be naturally nurtured by American land, to build a national character full of “Americanness” which is different from European one; that Irving writes the Indian deeds into touching legends, to provide white Americans with a national icon and glorious history equal to those of Europe; and that Irving constructs the false image of Indians have been or are about to be destroyed by civilization, to legitimize the whites’ “inheritance” of their history, land, and characteristics.