重审“福克纳的神话”:论《烧马棚》中的伦理选择与伦理反讽

Reexamining“Faulkner’s Mythology”:On the Ethical Choices and Ethical Irony in Barn Burning

聚焦于威廉·福克纳《烧马棚》中的主人公沙多里斯,认为他是在血统与正义之间做出艰难抉择,似乎已成为学界共识,却不免陷入思维窠臼。如若摈弃先入之见,细细揣摩《烧马棚》中沙多里斯的人物形象,不难发现双重叙事动力之并驾齐驱。显性情节中,沙多里斯做出两次伦理选择,人性因子战胜兽性因子,成功坚守“福克纳的神话”;而隐性进程中,沙多里斯摇身变为胆小怯懦、虚荣自私的个体,成为福克纳伦理反讽的对象,“神话”骤然坍塌。唯有发掘《烧马棚》中的双轨叙事,理解其中的伦理选择与伦理反讽,才能全面把握沙多里斯这一人物形象,深刻洞晓福克纳在全新历史文化语境下的审美取向,而非持蠡测海、以管窥天般地对人性之辩、福氏之思一锤定音。

It is almost consensual yet rather stereotyped for the academia to label Sartoris,the protagonist in William Faulkner’s Barn Burning,as a dilemmatic chooser between blood and justice,while the parallel of dual narrative dynamics may be perceived if preconception is abandoned.In the overt plot,Sartoris encounters two ethical choices and eventually allows the human factor to repulse the beast factor,thereby successfully sticking to what is known as“Faulkner’s mythology”;while in the covert progression,Sartoris turns into a timorous,vain and selfish individual and thus reduces into the target of Faulkner’s ethical irony,thereupon demolishing the so-called“mythology.”Only via excavating the dual-track narrative in Barn Burning and illuminating the ethical choices and ethical irony therein can we have a comprehensive grasp of Sartoris’s character and a poignant insight into Faulkner’s aesthetic orientations under the brand-new historical and cultural contexts instead of rashly drawing a one-sided and opinionated conclusion about Faulkner’s thoughts on human nature.