暴力与伦理的纠葛——解析科马克·麦卡锡《血色子午线》的后现代主义意向

The Entanglement between Violence and Ethics——An Analysis of Post-modernism in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian

文章旨在研究《血色子午线》1如何展示了暴力与伦理的纠葛,用以还原生活的本来面目,并探讨这部被誉为"美国真正的末世预言小说"暴力背后的普适意义。文章从暴力与伦理的视角切入,指出《血色子午线》揭示了宇宙的意象和一个普适的寓言:生物界的进化与人类的伦理观念存在着纠葛,并贯穿于整个人类社会中。相对于浩瀚宇宙长河中的"永恒的暴力",人类伦理显得是那么脆弱、短暂、不堪一击,这颇具有后现代、反历史的意味。文章关注麦卡锡在解构与颠覆启蒙时代以来的理性主义中所起的重要作用,对于从进化论与伦理学角度拓展美国后现代文学具有一定的借鉴意义。

This paper tries to address how Blood Meridian presents the entanglement between violence and ethics to reveal what the world really is, reaching out for the universal meaning hidden behind the violence in the“authentic American apocalyptic novel”. From the perspectives of violence and ethics, it points out that Blood Meridian reveals the image of the universe and a universal fable：the entanglements of biological evolution and human ethics go throughout the entire human community. Compared with the vast universe of“eternal”violence, human ethics are too delicate, brief, and vulnerable,and therefore, the novel is full of postmodern and anti-historical meanings. This paper investigates the important role that McCarthy plays in deconstructing and subverting the rationalism after the Age of Enlightenment, shedding some light on the study of postmodern American literature from the angle of evolution and ethics.