银器的言说——新物质主义视域下的《长日将尽》

英籍日裔作家石黑一雄小说《长日将尽》中的家居物品银器蕴含丰富的内涵。不引人注目的日常物质细节银器展示英国特定时期的文化,隐现时代的辙痕。本文借助从20世纪90年代开始的新物质主义批评话语发现,石黑一雄笔下的银器渗透着历史主义思想潮流,不仅反映了代际间的变革,而且把英国管家阶层的职业道德以及达林顿勋爵的地位融入其中,隐射帝国从辉煌走向没落。

The silverware in the novel The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro,a British-Japanese writer,contains rich connotations.Unobtrusive everyday material details of the silverware show the culture of a particular period in Britain,revealing the furrows of the times.With the help of the critical discourse of new materialism from the 1990s,this paper explores Ishiguro's silverware,which is permeated with the trend of historicism.It not only reflects the change of generations,but also incorporates the professional ethics of the British butler class and the status of Lord Darlington into it,implying the empire going from glory todecline.