两个女人的忏悔——艾伟长篇忏悔小说《爱人有罪》《南方》

The Confessions of Two Women:An Interpretation of Ai Wei's My Guilty Lover and The South

艾伟的长篇小说《爱人有罪》和《南方》以赎罪忏悔为主题。两部小说的主角均为永城县西门街的美女,她们无意犯罪却被罪恶附身,以至于成为"罪恶之源""悲剧之源"。其区别在于,前者是一个被命运捉弄而无罪生罪的善良女子余智丽的赎罪史,后者是一个红颜祸水般的女子罗忆苦的忏悔录;前者之赎罪取"生的状态",即余智丽在负罪中赎罪,后者取"死的状态",即罗忆苦亡魂以回叙的方式,对自己一生所犯的罪过进行坦白与忏悔。两个女人的赎罪忏悔殊途同归,同样显示出中国忏悔文学非宗教化的特色,即人的忏悔在很大程度上取决于经过了现代人性改造的本土伦理资源,而非外化的宗教伦理资源。

Ai Wei's My Guilty Lover and The Southare novels of confession and redemption.Both protagonists are the beauties of West Gate Street of Yongcheng County.Neither of them harbors the intention of perpetrating immoral things but both are possessed by evil and become'the source of evil'and'the source of tragedy'.The difference lies in that the former is the atonement history of an innocent and virtuous woman knocked around and made guilty by fate,while the latter is the confessions of a prostitute.The former story unfolds in the'living'state-redemption is implored in confessions when the sin is still alive.The latter one shifts to the'death'state-the story unfolds backward from the lady's endmost memories,remorse,and confessions.Both novels show the non-religious nature of Chinese confessional stories,i.e.,our repentance depends largely on the local ethical resources that have been transformed for modern human nature,not on imported religious ones.