维多利亚文化语境中矛盾意识的突显——评盖斯凯尔夫人的《玛丽·巴顿》

Mary Barton:The Ambivalent Consciousness in the Victorian Cultural Context

维多利亚时代的英国是一个充满矛盾的世界:经济腾飞与社会纷乱并存,民主意识与阶级矛盾共生,科学发现质疑宗教信仰,女性主义挑战男权社会。这样的文化语境冲击着人们尤其是知识分子的思想观念,使他们感到困惑和迷失,甚至矛盾重重。作为一位对当时社会极其敏感的作家,盖斯凯尔夫人在她的代表作《玛丽·巴顿》中突显了这一语境下的矛盾意识。本文试从盖斯凯尔夫人所处的小资产阶级立场、宗教信仰、女性作家在当时社会的地位三个方面解读《玛丽·巴顿》中所体现的矛盾意识。

The Victorian age in mid-nineteenth century was full of contradictions. The rapid economic development brought up the social disturbance; the democratic awareness grew up with the class contradictions; the new discoveries in science questioned the religious beliefs; the appearance of feminism challenged the patriarchal society. The kind of cultural context had a great influence on people＇ s ideology, especially that of the intellectuals. It made them feel puzzled, lost and ambivalent. As a writer who was sensitive to the society, in her masterpiece Mary Barton Mrs. Gaskell revealed her ambivalence in the cultural context. This paper is an attempt to analyze the ambivalence in Mary Barton from three aspects： the standpoint of Mrs. Gaskell as a pettybourgeois, her religious belief and her status as a woman writer in the Victorian age.