析安娜·伯恩斯小说《送奶工》中的后现代女性成长叙事

Anna Burns’s Milkman and the Postmodern Female Bildungsroman

2018年布克奖获奖小说《送奶工》运用意识流、短缩法、戏仿和自我指涉等手法,讲述年轻女主人公在极度压抑的政治氛围下如何应对成长中遭遇的危险,尤其是来自男性权威的性骚扰以及社群的流言蜚语等,具有后现代女性成长小说的特征。女性成长小说于20世纪后半期伴随女性主义和后现代主义思潮形成,其发展也分为两个不同路径:第一种成为女性主义表达政治诉求的工具,偏离美学追求;而第二种则更多与后现代主义美学结合,拒斥女性主义建构主体的乐观口号。《送奶工》的创作乃第二种路径,不是简单复制传统成长小说模式,建构理想的女性主体,而是以细密的笔法刻画女性成长的失败、自我的碎片化和损耗,同时也描写那些突围、觉醒和僭越的瞬间。

In her Man Booker winning Milkman,Anna Burns employs narrative techniques including stream of consciousness,foreshortening,parody and selfreferentiality,to reflect the fractured,traumatic consciousness of the young protagonist facing the harassment of a male authoritative figure in a tight community ripped by years of violence.The novel belongs to a special genre of the female bildungsroman which emerged in the 1960 s,along with the rise of feminism and postmodernism.This sub-genre has developed in two directions:one corresponding to feminism’s tendency to construct a female subject,and the other corresponding to postmodernist tendency to deconstruct it.While the first tends to be too political to be artistic,the second subverts a positive feminist message.Following this second path,Milkman offers a postmodern bildung narrative on the failure of female growth,the fracture and partial loss of self,as well as on moments of transgression and awakening.