试论苔丝的伦理选择

On Tess’s ethical dilemma

在对《德伯家的苔丝》的评述中,许多评论者都强调了苔丝在命运选择方面的被动和无奈,却忽视了她作为主体在悲剧发展中的主动作用。其实苔丝不是无助的牺牲品而是悲剧的代理者,在面临家庭、爱情方面的伦理选择时,她试图挑战伦理和社会结构间的关系,主动选择她自己认为正确的行为方式。苔丝的伦理选择虽然与社会现实相抵牾,但她作为悲剧代理者的身份暴露出了社会发展中的痼疾和矛盾,成为推动小说主题发展的力量来源。

Many critics have focused on Tess’s passivity and negativity in making choices in Tess of the d’Urbervilles,but obliterated her own initiation in tragic development as a subject.She would be actually a tragic representative rather than a helpless victim who actively chooses the ways she considers correct to challenge the relations between the ethics and social structures in facing the ethical dilemma of family and love.Tess’s ethical choices are not in accordance with the social development,but her identity as a tragic representative exposes the flaws and contradictions of the society,which enhances the development of the theme of the novel.