田纳西·威廉斯《欲望号街车》中的精神分裂与其文化意义

Schizophrenia and Its Cultural Significance in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire

疯狂是田纳西·威廉斯戏剧中经常出现的主题。《欲望号街车》完整地呈现了白兰奇的幻听、幻觉、妄想和逐步走向精神分裂的过程。威廉斯之所以能够如此逼真、客观、完整地描绘这一过程,是因为他个人的生活经历。威廉斯曾目睹了姐姐罗丝患上精神分裂的不幸遭遇,这给他的心灵造成了巨大创伤;白兰奇的精神疾患正是罗丝不幸命运的折射。白兰奇之所以成为美国戏剧史上最鲜活的女性人物之一,原因主要还在于威廉斯在《欲望号街车》中不仅完整地呈现了她作为一名精神分裂症患者最后几个月的病程,而且赋予了这一过程深刻的社会背景和文化寓意。

Madness is a recurrent theme in Tennessee Williams’plays.A Streetcar Named Desire presents the complete process of Blanche’s fall into madness,from false hearing,hallucination and delusion,to her final psychological collapse.That Williams could present such a compelling,objective and complete process is due to his personal traumatic experience in witnessing his sister Rose falling gradually into schizophrenia.Blanche’s mental illness is the reflection of Rose’s tragic fate.The reason why Blanche becomes one of the most vivid female characters in American theatre lies not in that Williams delineates the mental state of this character,but in that he gives it a deep cultural and social meaning.