帕特里克·怀特的存在主义思想渊源探析

The Origin of Patrick White’s Existentialism

帕特里克·怀特是一位有着鲜明创作特色的澳大利亚作家。他作品中的人物大多是深陷某一困境,无望却仍在不断挣扎,渴望得到自由的存在主义式人物形象。他的小说表现了无聊痛苦的日常生活和冷漠异化的人际关系。自怀特有记忆的童年起,日常体验让他觉得自己和周围的世界充满隔阂。在亲身经历过第二次世界大战后,怀特发现不仅仅是自己与周围的世界格格不入,而且整个世界都处于一种荒诞无序当中,这将他个体的孤独感扩大为对整个人类的荒谬感。在两次世界大战期间发展起来的存在主义哲学,将人的存在作为哲学的根本问题,关注人的生存状态,提出"世界是荒谬的""人生是痛苦的""他人即是地狱"等观点。这些观点恰好与怀特的日常生活经验和战争经历相契合。怀特同样开始思考人类的存在问题,并反映在他的文学作品当中。可以说他的文学作品是对那个时代,对存在主义哲学的呼应。

Patrick White is an Australian writer with distinctive writing style.Most of the characters in his works are trapped in a certain predicament,hopeless but still struggling and longing for a free existentialist figure.His novels show the boring and painful daily life and alienated interpersonal relations.All the lessons he learned in childhood made White feel disconnected from the world around him.After taking part in the Second World War,White found that not only he was out of tune with the world around him,but the whole world was in a state of absurdity and disorder,which expanded his individual loneliness into a sense of absurdity for the whole human race.Existentialist philosophy,developed during the two World Wars,takes human existence as the fundamental problem of philosophy,pays attention to the state of human existence,and puts forward such views as"the world is absurd","life is painful"and"others are hell".These ideas fit well with White’s experience of daily life and the war.The existence of human beings is reflected in White’s literary works,which are echoes of the era and existentialist philosophy.