“灰影”的暗示:儿童文学中的瘟疫叙事

The Implication of "Grey Shadow" :The Plague Narrative in Children’s Literature

儿童文学善于运用幻想、隐喻的方式展开瘟疫叙事。这种曲折隐晦的手法淡化了与"死亡""恐怖"有关的因素,能更好地为这一文类的目标受众所接纳,同时也促成了该文类在瘟疫叙事上的多样性。直接写明"瘟疫"字样的作品大多包含较明显的社会批判意义、透露出创作者的"理想社会"愿景蓝图及其若得建成的希冀所在;较为具体地状摹某种瘟疫病征或瘟疫影响下社会生活图景却不点破的作品往往因有其真实历史的原型,而被研究者作为宝贵而"特殊的历史叙事";更为隐晦的瘟疫书写则是保留了瘟疫留给人类的总体印象,是对恐怖记忆的提取和抽象再现,它们投射于各种人物形象的塑造和环境氛围的营造,有时候也承担着对社会状态的隐喻。儿童文学的瘟疫叙事保存了人类藉以对抗瘟疫的"信念基因"。

Children’s literature usually utilizes fantasy and metaphor to narrate plague. These kind of tortuous and subtle methods minimize the factors related to "death" and "terror", which can be better accepted by the target audience of this genre, and they also contribute to the diversity of this genre in the plague narrative. Most of the works with the words "plague" written in them directly contain obvious social criticism, reveal the blueprint of the creator’s "ideal society" and the ways they would like to choose;the works with a more specific description about the symptoms of a certain plague or the social life with the influence of the plague, often have their real historical prototype, which sometimes are treated as precious and "special narration about history" by the researchers;the most tortuous plague narrative retains a general impression of plague on human beings, which is an extraction and abstract representation of our horror memories. They are projected on the shaping of various characters and the construction of environmental atmosphere, and sometimes they also are the implication of social state. The plague narrative in children’s literature preserves the precious belief of human beings on fighting against plagues.