物质生态批评视域中《嘉莉妹妹》的车叙事

The Narrative of Vehicles in Sister Carrie from a Material Ecocritical Perspective

在物质生态批评视域中,车如同其他很多物件一样,早已擅自超越其交通工具属性,成为一种强大的有故事的物,这在《嘉莉妹妹》中有着高度戏剧化的体现。该作的整个情节都搭乘着车,五光十色的车辆留下了主人公嘉莉与赫斯特伍德人生曲线的印记。车是诸多物质元素的一种,也是最有存在感的一种,一直伴随着男主人公的起落,其境遇可谓一场翻车事故,而车作为一种本身就具有高度机动性、施事性的器物似乎在加快情节的发展。车以其自身特有的活动特征,完成了从功用性到建构性的转变。以车为代表的物叙事,或将在无形的世界里继续延伸。人们需时时自省,方能在当下人工智能日益发达的时代里学会驾驭好自己。

Viewed from the lens of material ecocriticism,vehicles,like many other objects,have long surpassed their transportation tool attributes and become a powerful and storied thing.This is dramatically exemplified in Sister Carrie,where the entire plot rides on the vehicle,leaving vivid marks of the protagonists Carrie and Hustwood’s life curves.In this process,the vehicle is one of numerous material elements,but also the most present one,accompanying the hero’s ups and downs,and his fate can be read as a story of a car accident,while the vehicle,as a device of inherent mobility and agency,seems to be accelerating this process.The vehicle completes its transformation from a functional object to a constructive one with its own unique mobility.The narrative of things represented by vehicle may continue to extend into the invisible world.People need to always reflect on their own behaviors in order to learn better how to navigate in this era of increasingly advanced artificial intelligence.