从《抵达之谜》看英国殖民统治的衰落

The Decline of British Colonial Rule Seen from The Mystery of Arrival

奈保尔在其著名的半自传小说《抵达之谜》中向读者描绘了一幅二战结束后英帝国因其由内而外都存在的巨大缺陷,最终不可避免地走向衰败的画面。他将庄园"瓦尔登肖"比作英国社会的缩影,把庄园内的荒废景物当成意象,通过描写这些景物的衰败暗衬日不落帝国的没落。与此同时,作品还描写了外乡人对庄园的入侵和改造,深刻地反映出后殖民时期人口大转移对殖民统治衰落的影响。奈保尔认识到,那个永恒的日不落帝国只存在于殖民者与被殖民者的想象中,事实上,无论多么强大的事物最终都会走向衰落。

V.S.Naipaul in his famous semi-autobiographical novel The Mystery of Arrival,depicts to the readers a picture of the decline of the British Empire inevitably after the end of World War II due to its huge defects from inside to outside.He compared the manor"Waldenshau"to a microcosm of English society.He took the deserted scenery in the manor as an image and described the decline of these scenery to obscure the dilapidation of the empire on which the sun never sets.At the same time,the work also describes the invasion and transformation of the manor by foreigners,which deeply reflects the influence of the large population transfer on the decline of colonial rule in the post-colonial period.Naipaul realized that the eternal the empire on which the sun never sets only exists in the imagination of the colonists and the colonized,and no matter how powerful things are,they will eventually decline.