论《给樱桃以性别》中的时空叙事话语与主题叙事

A Discourse of Space-Time Narrative in Sexing the Cherry

当代英国著名作家珍妮特·温特森的小说《给樱桃以性别》参照物理学时空观的内部矛盾建立时空叙事话语,为小说中的历史编纂叙事和身份认同叙事这两大主题叙事提供叙事原则。在悖论式时空叙事话语原则下,历史编纂叙事承认历史事件的客观性,强调历史编纂叙事的主观性和多元性,遵循时间的不可逆性、历史空间的开放性以及空间的确定性原则。身份认同叙事既表现为人物在精神和信念方面的角色身份认同和性别身份认同,也强调这种身份认同在时空中的变化。主题叙事遵循时间的可逆性与不可逆性以及空间的确定性与不确定性的共存原则。时空叙事话语与主题叙事之间的关系表明:在温特森的小说世界里,虽然矛盾和悖论永远存在,但它们可以在艺术中实现调和,艺术在此的永恒性折射出这部后现代小说对现代性中的永恒性的追求。

In light of the internal contradiction of space-time concepts in physics, British postmodern novelist Jeanette Winterson establishes a discourse of space-time narrative in her novel Sexing the Cherry to establish a set of narrative guidelines for historiographic narrative and identity narrative, the two major thematic narratives in the novel. Here historiographic narrative acknowledges the objectivity of historical events while underlining historiographical subjectivity and multiplicity; it follows principles such as irreversibility of time, openness of historical space, and determinacy of space. Identity narrative, on the other hand, explores the formation of role play and gender identity, both changing with time and space. Both thematic narratives in this work therefore feature coexistence of reversible and irreversible time, as well as determinate and indeterminate space. Winterson＇s discourse of space-time narrative, evidenced by these thematic narratives, suggests that contradiction and paradox, everlasting as they are, can be harmonized in art, whose eternity herein implicitly reflects this postmodern novel＇s modernist pursuit.