卡夫卡的中国想象——解读《中国长城建造时》

Kafka’s Chinese Imagination:——A Case Study on At the Building of the Great Wall of China

通过对卡夫卡的《中国长城建造时》的细读分析,试图解答卡夫卡为何及如何想象中国以及异域想象在其作品中发挥的叙事功能问题。指出卡夫卡的中国想象不是关于中国的想象,而是关于现代官僚体制如何自我复制、自我衍生的一则寓言,是关于自身文化身份焦虑的一种表征,也是关于此在与存在的关系的一种想象性反思。古老的中华帝国及其建造的万里长城只不过给他提供了展开这种想象的支点。借助这种想象和表述,他成功地解决了自我与他者、主体与客体、真实与虚构、逼真与仿真、叙事与反讽之间的矛盾和悖论。

This paper, based upon a close reading of Kafka＇s At the Building of the Great Wall of China, attempts to answer the questions of why and how Kafka lets fly his imagination to China, and how his exotic imagination functions in his narratives. The author thinks that Kafka＇s Chinese imagination is not about China, but is an allegory about modern bureaucracy and its self-reproduction and self-derivation. It is about a representation of his own cuhural identity and also an imaginative reflection upon the relationship between Existence and Dasein. The ancient Chinese Empire and its Great Wall provide only a fulcrum to Kafka＇s imagination. By his Chinese imagination and representation, Kafka successfully resolves the contradiction and irony between the self and the other, subject and object, faetuality and fiction, narrative and irony.