玛·德拉布尔《七姐妹》的性别叙事策略

Gender Narrative Strategy in Margaret Drabble's Seven Sisters

玛格丽特·德拉布尔的长篇小说《七姐妹》以巧妙的性别叙事策略探索了女性文学自我突破的可能性,这对中国当代女性书写具有借鉴意义。作家聚焦于老年女性的生活境遇与精神挣扎,以对弱势群体的关注而在当代小说创作中独树一帜;作家又精心安排了七姐妹的意大利之旅与古罗马史诗《埃涅阿斯纪》的互文关系,不仅通过当代人物与远古英雄的呼应传递出历史的厚重感,更以独特的女性旅行书写凸显了女性生存与她们在现实中的文化渴望的意义;运用复杂多变的叙述视角,作家将七姐妹的旅行表现为与埃涅阿斯的漂泊具有同样意义的告别失败、掌握命运与凤凰涅槃的旅程。

Through an ingenious gender narrative strategy, Margaret Drabble’s novel Seven Sisters explores the possibility of breakthrough regarding the self in women’s literature and presents a referential significance for contemporary Chinese women’s literature. The writer focuses onlife predicaments of old women and their spiritual struggles, putting forward a special and deep concern regarding this disadvantaged group. Drabble also presents a carefully-designed intertextural relationship, comparing seven sisters’Italian trip to the ancient Romanepic The Aeneid, back grounding her contemporary characters against the richness of history and ancient heroes, and highlighting the psychological values of women’s culture. Through the varied narrative perspectives, the writer considers the seven sisters’trip as a farewell to failure, a chance to change and manage their own lives, similarly to Aeneas’s longtime drifting.