爱的困境:论《寒夜》的深层意蕴

The Predicament of Love: On the Deep Implications of Cold Nights

巴金的后期代表作《寒夜》描写了抗战时期一个下层知识分子家庭的悲欢离合故事,三个主要人物汪文宣、曾树生和汪母热爱生活,热爱亲人,然而最终无一能够逃脱不幸——经济、物质的困顿和情感心灵的折磨甚至是生命的终结。作品除表现了鲜明的社会批判内容外,还具有一定的深层意蕴,即对人间之爱问题的探索,对爱的困境的思考:母亲爱儿子,慈爱与专断,无私与自私纠结,母爱在一定程度上成为占有和统治;丈夫爱妻子,更多的是乞求和依赖,爱给予妻子更多的是束缚和折磨;妻子对丈夫则徘徊于爱与不爱之间,情感与理性之间,形成对丈夫的情感捉弄。由此可见,爱有时是很无奈的,亲情、爱情的价值有时是悖谬的。正是人性弱点致使每个人处于这种爱的困境中而无力自拔。

The later representative work Cold Nights of Ba Jin describes the vicissitudes of life of a grass- roots intellectual family during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. The three main characters, Wang Wenxuan, Zeng Shusheng and Mother Wang, all love life and their relations, but finally cannot escape from the mishaps of impoverished economic and material circumstances, emotional and psychological torture, and even death. Besides the animadverting on the society, the work also has some deep implications-the exploration of love between people, and the thought about the predicament of love. Mother＇s love to the son, with kindliness entangled with arbitrariness, selflessness with selfness, was to a certain extent manifested by possession and dominion. Husband＇s love to the wife, which was more of an entreaty and dependence, brought the wife more of restriction and affliction. The wife had no idea whether she loved her husband or not, thus her emotion and rationality played a trick on the husband. Therefore, love sometimes cannot help. The value of affection between family members and love between spouses are also sometimes absurd. It is the human weakness that makes every one sink in the predicament of love with no escape.