生命不能抛弃之重——评《末路迷情》的婚姻主题(英文)

Possessions That Cannot Be Discarded—On the Theme of Marriage in Earthly Possessions

安妮·泰勒是一位南方女作家,也被视为美国文坛的一颗新星。自从1964年发表第一步小说《倘若清晨会到来》以来,迄今已为美国文学贡献了近20部小说。在中国,关于安妮·泰勒的研究尚处于起步阶段,对她的作品主题的探讨也比较罕见。《末路迷情》发表于1977年,是其第七部小说。该书讲述了一位名为夏洛特的中年主妇的故事。当夏洛特决定离开她丈夫的时候,被意外卷入一次银行抢劫中。通过将夏洛特和其他相似角色进行横向比较以及纵向剖析夏洛特的几次失败的尝试,该文致力于探索小说的婚姻主题。最终小说得出结论:婚姻,家庭,抑或责任是每个个体作为一个客观存在而注定无法摆脱的羁绊。

A southern female novelist, Anne Tyler is seen as a rising star in the American literary world. Since the publication of her first novel If Morning Ever Comes in 1964, she has by now contributed nearly 20 novels to the American Literature. In china, research on Anne Tyler is still at its nascent stage and discussions about her themes are scarce. Earthly Possessions, her seventh novel written in 1977, deals with the life of Charlotte, a middle-aged housewife, who finds herself involved in a bank robbery when she decides to leave her husband. This paper is dedicated to exploring its theme of marriage by horizontally comparing Charlotte with other similar characters and by vertically analyzing her failed attempts to walk away from her husband and family. Ultimately it finds out that marriage, or family, or responsibilities are the doomed encumbrances to an individual as a social being, in particular to females. With the title'earthly possessions', Anne Tyler intends to underline those immaterial possessions in life that cannot be discarded by human beings.