伊恩•麦克尤恩早期作品中的另类少年

Perverse Teenagers in Ian McEwan’s Early Works

当代英国作家伊恩•麦克尤恩对儿童或青少年问题的关注由来已久。在他的早期作品中,那些违背伦常、没有道德感的青少年让读者感到不安和震惊。本文以短篇故事《家庭制造》和第一部长篇小说《水泥花园》为研究对象,结合西方社会对儿童这一群体的认知与理解,借鉴米歇尔•福柯关于性“话语事实”的相关论述,分析这些另类少年在观念上、行为上走入误区的原因。对《家庭制造》中的叙述者而言,粗俗的性话语和扭曲的社会力量塑造了他的性观念;对《水泥花园》中的朱莉和杰克而言,闭环式的家庭环境决定了他们对待性的态度。与传统观念中儿童/青少年被视为无性人群不同,这两个故事中的主人公不仅有着活跃的性意识,而且因为没有得到恰当的引导和教育,走上了背离社会规范的歧途。在一定程度上,麦克尤恩的早期作品击碎了成人对于儿童或青少年的美好想象,以一种陌生化的方式开启对未成年人道德问题的思考。

Contemporary British writer Ian McEwan has long been concerned with the children or teenager problems and his early works have disturbed and shocked readers with the descriptions of those transgressive and immoral teenagers. With the short story “Homemade” and his first novel The Cement Garden as the target texts, and in light of Western society’s illustration and understanding of children, as well as Michel Foucault’s “discursive facts” about sexuality, this paper explains why these perverse teenagers go astray in their conceptions and behaviors. For the narrator of “Homemade”, vulgar sexual discourse and disorientating social forces shape his view;for Julie and Jack in The Cement Garden, the enclosed upbringing environment determines the way they understand sexuality. Different from the traditional constructions of children/teenagers as asexual, the protagonists in these two stories are presented as sexually active, and their deviation from social norms can be attributed to a lack of proper guidance and education. To some extent, McEwan's early works have smashed the beautiful picture that adults have drawn for children or teenagers, and initiate the thinking about minors’ moral problems in a defamiliarizing way.