伊莎贝尔对主体性的追寻——《一位女士的画像》中的意识呈现与叙事张力

Isabel’s Struggle for Subjectivity: The Representation of Consciousness and Narrative Tensions in The Portrait of a Lady

亨利·詹姆斯的长篇小说《一位女士的画像》,塑造了女主人公伊莎贝尔对于自身主体性的探索,呈现了她对个人自由这一概念的不断修正的过程。本文认为《一位女士的画像》分别在故事和话语两个层面建构了叙事张力:一是伊莎贝尔在故事前半段被其他角色的"物化"过程与她自身不断觉醒的意识能动性之间的张力,这使得伊莎贝尔借助自己意识的能动性,挑战了来自外部的叙事凝视和故事内部的父权制物化女性的传统,积极为自己的主体性增添社会化的维度;二是作者型叙述者的声音与伊莎贝尔自己的声音之间的张力,这为伊莎贝尔的主体性增加了伦理方面的维度,这一维度要求她成长为一个耐心细致、具有高度共情能力的观察者,使她意识到自己主体性的确立离不开对"他者"的意识、"非我"的存在进行认真的解读与思考。小说结尾处高度含混的语言风格与叙事方式,使得这两对叙事张力没有得到完全的化解,这表现了亨利·詹姆斯不向读者强加道德结论、将叙事艺术与伦理探索相结合的写作理念,也体现了他对读者基于自身的阅读经验积极探寻人类存在的根本问题的鼓励与期待。

Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady sketches Isabel’s struggle for her subjectivity and her negotiation of personal freedom out of complex moral dilemmas.By examining the way James presents Isabel’s consciousness in this work,this paper argues that Isabel’s consciousness undergoes narrative dramatization through two narrative tension so as to foreground her searching trajectory of subjectivity which gradually absorbs social and ethical dimensions.The first narrative instability,established on the level of story,concerns the paradoxically opposing situation between Isabel’s being objectified by other characters’gaze and her awakened consciousness gazing back at other characters.The dynamics of this tension add a social dimension into Isabel’s growing consciousness,making her realize that any subjectivity is actually"inter-subjectivity".The second narrative tension,formed on the level of discourse featuring the use of free indirect discourse,is constructed between the narratorial imposition and the character’s unmediated selfrepresentation.The presence of the authorial narrator,the structure of"the consciousness of the other’s consciousness",and the use of figurative language,add an ethical dimension to Isabel’s subjectivity,which requires her to show full respect and appreciation for"the alterity"with her developed perception.In conclusion,by dramatizing the presentation of Isabel’s consciousness through two narrative tensions that are not completely resolved in the end of the story,Henry James puts into motion the dynamics between the ethical and the narrative,imbues storytelling craftsmanship with subjectivity exploration,which embraces the reader’s unstable experience of ethical issues and encourages the reader to ponder over the ever-mysterious nature of human existence.