异化与需求层次断裂:《木马赢家》中保罗的悲剧探源

Alienation from the Other and Annihilation of the Self:An Analysis of Paul’s Tragedy in The Rocking-horse Winner

《木马赢家》是D.H·劳伦斯最具有代表性的短篇小说之一。小说主人公保罗为了获得母爱,满足虚荣的母亲,将自己全部的精力投入到赌马比赛中。通过疯狂鞭挞、摇晃玩具木马,保罗一次次神秘地获悉赛马冠军的名字,由此为母亲赢得大量金钱。最后,在成功预测出一场赌注最大的赛马比赛后,保罗不幸从木马上摔下死去。运用马尔库塞的“异化”理论和马斯洛的需求理论,深刻剖析小说主人公保罗之死的悲剧根源。保罗之死看似偶然,但其折射出的西方工业社会对物质的过度追求及人们精神世界的极度贫瘠却直指其死亡的必然性。

The Rocking-Horse Winner is one of the most famous short novels of D.H.Lawrence.The main character Paul indulges in horse racing gambling in order to win money to satisfy her mother’s greed for more money.The little boy is endowed with some supernatural power.Therefore,he is able to predict the name of the winner in horse racing events so long as he sits on his big wooden horse and starts a furious ride.After making his last successful prediction which wins his family a great amount of money,Paul fell with a crash to the ground,soon died.This article attempts to analyze the causes of Paul’s tragedy from the perspective of Marcuse’s Theory on Alienation and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.In the meantime,the analysis of Paul’s tragedy hopes to cast light on the spiritual imbalance in the 20th Century Britain with highly developed material civilization.