乌托邦小说的极限:《发条橙》对暴力发生和传播机制的剖析

Bringing the Dystopian Novel to Its Logical Conclusion:Emotional and Social Mechanisms of Violence in A Clockwork Orange

安东尼·伯吉斯的中篇小说《发条橙》是20世纪暴力文学的经典作品,对研究暴力的情感和社会机制之间的交叉和渗透有极大的启迪。通过对身体暴力的描写,小说一方面微妙地质疑基督教传统中的"自由意志"观念,对暴力的产生和传播方式加以剖析,另一方面抨击用政府对个体行为加以控制的手段来替代自由意志的做法,对战后英国建立起来的福利社会发出了严峻的挑战。小说也因此将19世纪以来的反乌托邦叙事传统推向了极致。

As one of a small contingent of 20th-century novels that provide graphic depictions of physical abuse,A Clockwork Orange constitutes an in-depth study of the interpenetration of emotional and social mechanisms of violence.Through thoughtful depictions of the generation and proliferation of violence,the novel demonstrates the perversion of such emotions as anger and disgust and their contagion,charting cycles of violence linking the penal and educational institutions of the novel＇s fictional universe and its common citizenry.Simultaneously,the novel casts doubt on ＂behavior treatment＂ that aims to control and monitor extreme emotions,thus launching a critique of the postwar welfare state in Britain.In so doing,Burgess＇ s work brings the tradition of the dystopian novel to its logical extreme.