狄更斯与纨绔精神:《我们共同的朋友》中的尤金形象辨析

Dickens and Dandyism:Eugene Wrayburn in Our Mutual Friend

《我们共同的朋友》中尤金的纨绔子特质常遭到误解或漠视,本文通过揭示狄更斯与同时代的纨绔子布尔沃•利顿其人其文的历史联系,在小说文本分析的基础上,辨析尤金的纨绔子身份以及作者对这一人物倾注的同情。尤金在机敏悖谬的言辞、镇定自若的举止、懒散的生活方式、浅表化的人生态度等方面表现出了纨绔精神,纨绔精神在小说中具有积极内涵,与尤金的绅士设定相容,与文中的中产阶级文化批判主旨趋于一致。尤金不同于狄更斯以往描绘的纨绔子群像,展现了人物设定上的复杂性和内在统一性,反映了狄更斯与纨绔精神相容的一面。

In Our Mutual Friend,Eugene’s identity as a dandy has frequently been misinterpreted or ignored.Through textual analysis and historical exploration of Dickens’s association with Bulwer Lytton in his social life and writing career,the paper discloses Dickens’s partial identification with aristocratic and dandyish culture,which probably accounts for the author’s positive treatment of Eugene as a dandyish gentleman.Eugene demonstrates a dandyish tendency in his witty remarks,calm manner,indolent way of living,and playful attitude toward life and middle class morality.With those dandyish characteristics,Eugene displays different ways of seeing and living,and his deviance from social norms is endowed with cultural significance in accordance with the overall attack on middle-class culture in the novel.Eugene is markedly different from the debauched dandies in Dickens’s prior works.To accept the character of Eugene as a dandy in a favorable light will help readers to discern the complexity of and consistency in the characterization.Dickens’s sympathetic attitude towards dandyism,though much ignored by critics,is displayed fully in this novel.