重压下的生存美学:欧茨小说《鬼父》的福柯式解读

Aesthetics of Existence under Pressure:A Foucauldian Interpretation of Joyce Carol Oates’s Daddy Love

运用福柯的生存美学理论对美国当代女作家乔伊斯·卡罗尔·欧茨的小说《鬼父》进行解读,分析了陷入生存困境的主人公黛娜通过“自身技术”的实践建立起独树一帜的生存美学,从而得以体会人生乐趣的过程。认为对现代人类生存困境的揭露只是欧茨《鬼父》创作的一个方面,更为重要的是在作品中探索出了一条超越悲剧的可能途径。即个体生存美学的实践,为那些挣扎在生存困境中的人们走出阴霾,实现更好的生存提供了一条可借鉴的现实出路。

In light of Foucault's theory of aesthetics of existence,this paper interprets the novel Daddy Love by the American contemporary female writer Joyce Carol Oates,and analyzes how the protagonist Dinah achieves her unique aesthetics of existence through practicing technologies of the self and thus comes to taste the joy of life.It believes that Oates's consideration in shaping this novel is not only in the disclosure of the tragic existence of modern humans but also in the pointing to the possible way to transcend tragedy,namely the individual's practice of the aesthetics of existence,so as to offer people in plight a feasible way to live through the darkness and achieve better survival.