“我既置身其中又置身其外”:《了不起的盖茨比》空间叙述的矛盾性

“I was within and without”: The contradictory space narrative in The Great Gatsby

菲茨杰拉德的作品《了不起的盖茨比》被视为书写美国20世纪20年代精神危机和道德堕落的社会小说。随着20世纪末文学研究的'空间转向',这位美国20世纪初纽约文学版图上地标式的人物再次引起学术界的关注。现有从空间的维度切入《了不起的盖茨比》中纽约城市空间书写的研究却并未将小说中的第一人称叙述与空间书写结合起来考察小说的深层次社会和文化内涵。本文从第一人称叙述呈现的城市空间出发,认为故事内人物叙事者尼克通过族裔空间的消隐、城市漫游、城市空间规训等空间生产实践的矛盾叙述产生的张力中揭示(隐含)作者对美国社会变迁矛盾的情感结构和白人身份焦虑。

The Great Gatsby is considered to depict the mental crisis and moral decay during the 1920 s in America.With the space turn at the end of 20th century,Fitzgerald,an important figure in the literary map of New York has drawn the critical attention;however,current scholarship has failed to relate the space narrative to the first-person narrator to examine the social and cultural significance of the novel.The paper tends to argue that being the character narrator of the novel,Nick’s treatment of racial and ethnic space,his flaneur experience,and his surveillance in the city space are contradictory and further produce the tension to reveal Fitzgerald’s mentality about the social changes and the whites’identity anxiety.