“作者之死”与读者之生:《证言》中阿特伍德的创作观

“The Death of the Author”and the Birth of the Reader:Atwood's Literary Construction in The Testaments

阿特伍德的小说《证言》围绕三份记载基列国消亡的证词展开。三名作证人分别因为生理层面的死亡、对原生场景的直接模仿以及个体思想的无意识而丧失了佐证证词的能力。证词读者就此摆脱作证人的无形掌控,获得理解文本的绝对自由。证词与作证人的关系在三个维度的破裂暗含阿特伍德对后者非必要性存在的认知,这种创作方式与巴特“作者之死”理念的内涵遥相呼应,既体现作者在文本阐释过程中被弱化的地位,又反映作者对读者阅读自由的压制作用。

Margaret Atwood's The Testaments pivots around three transcripts of testimonies recording the fall of Gilead.The three attestors are deprived of their abilities to testify,since they are biologically dead,directly imitating the primal scene,and unconscious in mind.Thus,readers of the testimony break away from attestors'invisible control,being granted the absolute freedom to interpret the text accordingly.It is implicit in the three-dimensional breakdowns between the testimony and the attestor that Atwood plays down the author's existential necessity,which echoes Roland Barthes's concept—“the Death of the Author.”Atwood's writing technique together with Barthes's theory not only unveil the author's undermined position in illuminating the text,but alludes to the shackle put on to readers during the latter's interpretation of the novel.