水泥裂缝中开出的花朵——狂欢化解读伊恩·麦克尤恩《水泥花园》里孩子们的笑

Flowers Growing in the Cement Cleft:A Carnival Reading of Children's Laughter in Ian McEwan's The Cement Garden

素有"恐怖伊恩"之称的英国当代作家伊恩·麦克尤恩1978年所著小说《水泥花园》讲述了在失去正常社会秩序和规范的家庭荒原中,未成年孩子们经历的痛苦、无序、混沌的成长。运用巴赫金的狂欢化理论解读《水泥花园》,认为笑是孩子们从自我放逐走向成熟的重要线索。孩子们标志性的三次狂欢式的笑既是对权力交替的庆祝,又是对父母权威的嘲讽;既是对迎接新生的礼赞,又是对过去身份的告别。以笑为依托获得成长的孩子们,并非如评论界所言在伦理缺失的荒原上胡作非为,而是在用狂欢的庆典争取欢乐的自由,用笑声的养分培育出水泥缝中的生命之花。

Ian McEwan,the British contemporary author,is known as the＂Horrible Ian＂. Published in 1978,The Cement Garden is a＂gothic novel＂describing four siblings＇ growth after their parents＇ death. Due to a severe lack of social norm and due attention,the four children grow up in a painful,disordered and chaotic way. Reading this novel under the framework of Bahktin＇s carnivalization theory,this article discovers that laughter serves as a clue symbolizing their ascending from self-debasement into maturity. It can be understood that these children laugh to celebrate power handover,to mock at the parental authority; simultaneously,they laugh to sing a psalm for renewal and to say goodbye to the past. Instead of loitering around on the ethical wasteland,as is misunderstood by most critics,these children strive for the right of freedom in a carnivalized way; they use laughter as a source of nutrition to flowers growing in the cement cleft.