伊恩·麦克尤恩《我的紫色芳香小说》中的媒介景观与伦理选择

Media Spectacle and Ethical Choice in Ian Mc Ewan’s My Purple Scented Novel

伊恩·麦克尤恩的早期短篇小说常被认为以暴力、怪诞、欲望等元素追问现代社会的道德困境和共情失败。然而,在《我的紫色芳香小说》中,麦克尤恩却选择以当代英国社会的媒介景观展现自我与他人的共情危险和伦理可能。小说中媒介景观的生成不仅制衡了中产阶级知识分子的身份建构,更是体现了话语场域中的博弈。媒介景观的运行隐含着麦克尤恩对情感占位与真相空缺关系的审视与协商,人物通过共情取代了剽窃事件真相留下的空位,使真相讲述成为一种情感的叙事立场,其反讽张力昭示了媒介景观暴力对语言的抽空和情感的阻隔。在麦克尤恩看来,通过再现媒介景观的自反性,既辐射了情感依靠与媒介暴力的亲缘性,也表达出社会景观化过程中自我与他人之间向善共情的可能。

Ian McEwan’s early short stories are often considered to question the moral dilemma and empathy failure in contemporary British society by employing themes such as violence,grotesque and desire.However,in My Purple Scented Novel,Mc Ewan turns to media spectacle for displaying the dangers of empathy and the possibilities of ethics.His usage of media spectacle in this story not only limits the identity construction of middle-class intellectuals,but also displays the games of discourse.Mc Ewan’s picturing of media spectacle implies his examination and negotiation of the relations between emotion and truth.The characters seek the truth of the plagiarism incident with empathy,making truth telling an affective narration,and the ironic tension hence exposes media spectacle as a barrier to developing human emotional response and understanding.In Mc Ewan’s view,the reflexivity of media spectacle not only reflects the affinity between emotional dependence and media violence,but also expresses the possibility of empathy for virtue in a society of the spectacle.