《曼哈顿中转站》中的日常生活批评

The Critique of Everyday Life in Manhattan Transfer

美国作家约翰·多斯·帕索斯的城市小说《曼哈顿中转站》以二十世纪二十年代美国纽约曼哈顿为故事背景,聚焦纽约都市形形色色人物的日常生活。作者通过对小说三个人物--巴德·库本宁、吉米·赫夫和艾伦·撒切尔在大城市谋生,追逐理想最终全部以失败告终的命运刻画,全面批判了现代日常生活的瞬间性、强制性和被动性,表现了弥漫着死亡、迷失和虚幻气息的纽约都市、纽约现代社会对人们日常生活的影响和控制。小说中的人物在历经理想幻灭后最终意识到曼哈顿并不是实现梦想的中转之站,而只是令无数追梦人心碎的乌托邦。帕索斯对书中纽约日常生活的强烈批判体现出他作为一个忠实的美国历史记录者对二十世纪初美国现代社会生活百态的深入关照。

The moments,passivity and homogeneity of everyday life specifically refer to the characteristics embodied by modern everyday life that is changeable,money-worshipped,and homogeneous.Manhattan Transfer,authored by John Dos Passos,takes a snapshot of everyday lives of all walks of people in the New York City in the early 1920s.Through depicting the life stories of three characters:Bud Corpeening,Jimmy Herf,and Ellen Thatcher,all of whom seek to win themselves a place in New York City but are doomed to failure in the end,Passos comprehensively criticizes the moments,passivity,and hemogeneity of modern everyday life in New York City,and fully presents the predicament that people are unable to get rid of the modern New York society that permeates the smell of death,confusion,and disillusionment.Facing their broken dreams,all of the characters finally realize that Manhattan Transfer is never the hub where their dreams can come true but the utopian city that causes their heartbreaking and helplessness.The critique of everyday life of New York City in the early 1920s presented in this novel shows John Dos Passos,as an honest chronicler of American history,and his deep concerns about the modern American society.