从《阿卡狄亚》看斯托帕德的生命观

Tom Stoppard's Outlook on Life in Arcadia

汤姆·斯托帕德的戏剧《阿卡狄亚》通过情节推衍、人物刻画、主题延续,戏剧化地展现生命/死亡、完满/缺失、秩序/混乱之间的相互隐喻关系,极其隐晦地表达了剧作家的悲观主义生命观。斯托帕德认为对真相的探求、对缺失的拒绝、对有序世界的期待是人类面对死亡威胁的策略性反应,但死亡是注定的结局,因此,人类的追求注定徒劳无功。尽管剧作家在剧终借助戏剧舞台肯定了人类探索真相的努力,但人类追求的完满与秩序注定只是幻象。

Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia dramatizes the metaphorical relationship between life and death,between fullness and shortness,and between order and chaos through plot development,characterization,and thematic continuation.The playwright's pessimistic outlook on life is expressed in a very subtle way.Stoppard believes that the search for truth,the rejection of defects,and the expectation of an orderly world are the strategic responses of human beings to the threat of death,but death is the doomed outcome.Therefore,any pursuit of human beings is doomed to be futile.Although the playwright affirms the efforts of human beings to explore the truth at the end of the play on the stage,the perfection and order that human beings pursue are doomed to be mere illusions.