“看不见,听不见”:论《典型的美国佬》中的反讽

“See Nothing,Hear Nothing”:On the Ironies in Gish Jen’s Typical American

任璧莲的《典型的美国佬》是一部具有反讽意味的小说。文章从小说悖论性的标题和结局出发,借用小说开篇里提到的“一个人在听,但却没听见”的“听不见”作为引子,对小说中出现的几种反讽形式进行论述,发现反讽不仅体现在微观的修辞层面,也体现在复杂的叙事层面和宏观的文本结构中,并且反讽还超越了文本层面,在文本与社会语境之间形成了符号表意。尽管反讽具有喜剧化的表征,但其滑稽有趣的表象却不能掩盖作者深藏于文本中的严肃主题,反讽还指向现实,承认多重解释的开放性。

Gish Jen’s Typical American is a novel full of stunning ironies.This paper first studies the novel’s ironic title and ending,and the paradoxical case of“one listens but fails to hear”that appears at the beginning of the novel.Then the paper analyzes the three forms of irony in the novel.It can be found that irony is not only reflected on a micro rhetorical level,but also on a complex narrative level and in macro text structure.Irony also transcends the textual level,forming a symbolic representation between the text and social contexts.Although irony has the characteristic of comedy,it’s funny and interesting appearance cannot conceal the serious theme hidden in the text by the author.Irony also points to the entire reality,and acknowledges the openness for multiple interpretations.