威尔基·柯林斯惊悚小说与维多利亚中期女性读者的身份建构

Wilkie Collins’ Sensation Fiction and Construction of Mid-Victorian Female Readers’ Identity

以威尔基·柯林斯为代表的小说家以其杰出的笔触书写独具魅力的惊悚小说,从而享誉英国19世纪文坛,并大有与现实主义小说平分秋色之态势。其连载方式、低廉售价、平实语言、起伏跌宕的情节适应底层劳动者的阅读习惯,因而培养出一批大众读者,尤其是女性读者群。柯林斯通过取材真实案件、揭露中产阶级家庭丑闻、揭穿贵族与中上层阶层的丑陋行径、颠覆传统“家中天使”形象,从而引起女性读者对其社会身份和家庭身份反思,虽在一定程度上实现小说参与社会意识形态建构的作用,但也不乏知识分子对社会的警醒认识。

The sensation fiction writers, represented by Wilkie Collins as the father, have composed many distinguished works that are even matched with those realist novels at the time and have been renowned in 19th British literary field. Its serialization of publication, low price, common language, and sensational plots cater to the reading appetite of lower-middle class readers who in turn are shaped as special readers, especially women. Collions takes in the real criminal cases, penetrates into the family scandals, exposes the unmoral behaviors of the nobles and middle-class, subverts the conventional image of “angel in the house” in order to arouse the women’s reflection over the social and family identities. Although he makes the sensation fiction comply with the construction of social ideology to a certain extent, he never gives up fulfilling the reflective function of literature on social issues.