【作者】 白爱宏；

【导师】 王守仁；

【作者基本信息】 南京大学 ， 英语语言文学， 2010， 博士

【摘要】 第二次世界大战之后的30年是美国历史上极为重要的历史时期。在这一时期,科学技术突飞猛进,经济发展前所未有,美国政治、文化与社会在酝酿、发生着重大而影响久远的变革。贝娄发表于此一时期的五部长篇小说——《奥吉·马奇历险记》(1953),《雨王汉德森》(1959),《赫索格》(1964),《塞姆勒先生的行星》(1970),《洪堡的礼物》(1975),以及两篇短篇名作——《未来父亲》(1955)与《老一套》(1967)在很大程度上都是对这一时期美国社会所发生的一些重要问题的回应。本文以社会历史批评方法为框架,将这些作品置于其特有的历史语境中加以考察,以图对贝娄及其作品作出新认识。在贝娄看来,异化是现代社会的组成部分,是社会现代化进程的必然现象。现代社会由于城市化、由于科学技术的发展而造成了太多的杂乱、混乱与纷繁扰攘,极易使人们陷入一种异化的状态,即人所创造的世界对于人自身所形成的渗透、重压、诱惑、挑逗使人与自我、人与人、人与自然之间的关系遭受扭曲与遮蔽的状态。但贝娄与经典现代主义作家不同,他并不同意人面对异化毫无希望之说。他相信,人能够克服异化。因此,本文所探讨的问题是,贝娄的上述作品中的主人公为抵抗异化力量采取什么策略,换言之,就是探讨贝娄在其重要作品中所展示出的主人公践行其个体认同的策略,或抵抗“异化”的策略。本文将围绕如下问题展开：他笔下的人物采取什么样的策略抵抗异化?这些人物在当代美国社会背景下如何构建他们的身份?这些人物如何对待个体与群体的关系?本文主要分三章。第一章探讨贝娄发表于20世纪50年代的两部作品《奥吉·马奇历险记》与《雨王汉德森》中的主人公抵抗异化的流动策略。这一时期美国经济蓬勃发展,处于鲍曼所称的资本主义从“沉重”到“轻快”的过渡期,福特主义的生产方式是这一时期社会的缩影。由于这一时期的主导生产方式及大规模的郊区化,同质化引发的焦虑成为当时社会所关注的主要问题。与此同时,美苏两大集团之间的冷战迅速展开,使美国社会笼罩在焦虑与恐惧之中。在这样的背景之下,贝娄创作了这两部作品作为对社会关注问题的回应。在《奥吉·马奇历险记》中,奥吉·马奇利用流动的浮士德策略与流亡策略来抵抗规训,由此来践行他的个体认同。《雨王汉德森》则是对冷战导致的焦虑与恐惧的回应。死亡的恐惧及生活空虚使汉德森处于异化的状态之中。他与奥吉·马奇相同,也同样选择流动的策略来应对固态时空的问题。他远赴非洲,历经两个部落。他利用从一时空到另一时空的策略,领悟到了生命的价值与意义。两部小说体现出来的是50年代美国社会的向往、焦虑与彷徨,同时也体现了贝娄对于人的一种信念,即人具有能够超越时空限制的潜质。第二章主要考察《赫索格》与《塞姆勒先生的行星》两部作品中主人公抵抗异化的话语策略。20世纪60年代是美国走向“水平社会”进程中的关键节点。在这一时期,“水平社会”所具有的要素“多元平等”观念开始成为各弱势阶层的实际奋斗目标。民权运动,学生运动,反文化运动等推动美国社会走向“水平”化的力量与美国社会中“垂直”秩序的力量发生激烈冲撞,美国社会处于一个新旧交错、容易使人困惑、彷徨、不安乃至痛苦的历史时期。在这种背景下,贝娄创作了这两部作品。赫索格运用“书写”与“记忆”话语策略来构建自己丧失的社会关系网络,构建自己的身份；塞姆勒则使用“互动”与“记忆”非书写策略来构建自己的身份。两个人物体现了20世纪60年代美国社会的冲突、分裂与痛苦,体现了那一时期“水平”化运动及其所推动促进的多元文化主义与传统文化发生激烈交锋所形成的文化阵痛。这两部作品也形成了贝娄创作中的一个转折点,即由前两部作品对时空的关注转向了对人物内心关注。两个人物更加关注内心的“律法”。个体与社会的关系是西方社会学界长期以来关注的问题。本文第三章也从这一关系来审视贝娄笔下的主人公们是如何看待两者之间的关系。欧美的个体意识的核心是孤独的个体,无论欧洲的个人主义还是美国个人主义,其核心均是如此。其不可避免的缺陷是只关注自身,只关注物质,最终使个体的生活沦为一种异化存在,即忽视人与人之间的关系且没有理想的存在。在贝娄的作品中,主要人物的个体认同是美国个人主义,其根源仍是孤独的个体,但又与其并不完全相同,“我们一认同”也是贝娄作品中的重要内容,是其人物生活中不可或缺的一部分,是贝娄小说中主人公抵抗异化的重要平衡力量。对于贝娄作品中的主要人物而言,个体的自由、自主与独立和人与人的关系,即“我们—认同”,一样重要。贝娄作品中主要人物所追求的是一种认同平衡,他们力图用“我们—认同”来抵抗美国社会对个人主义的认同所导致的异化性结果。贝娄的作品在某种程度上,既是对美国社会主流意识形态“能者居之制度论”的认同,也是一种力图对这种主导性的认同进行反思、批判与纠正的努力。“认同平衡”是贝娄笔下的主人公的重要认同策略。在本文所涉及的这些作品中,贝娄笔下的主人公的个体认同是美国个人主义,其核心是孤独个体,但其不同之处是与此同时他们也强调用认同平衡来弥补这一个体认同的先天性不足；这些作品反映了第二次世界大战以来由于科学技术及经济发展所导致的美国乃至西方社会知识个体的认同危机及努力；贝娄是一位遭遇困境的人文主义者,是一位彰显了人文主义在当代美国社会乃至西方社会所遭受危机与挑战的人文主义者,或者说是一位在当代经济、文化与社会的急剧变革中坚持信念的理想主义者；他和他笔下的人物一样,力量更多地源自于其心中的信念而非外界社会现实。更多还原

【Abstract】 The three decades following the Second World War was of profound significance in the history of the United States. With its booming economy, and rapidly developing science and technology in that period, the United States was undergoing sweeping and far-reaching social, political and cultural transformations. Abundance led to the expansion of the middle class, the Cold War to fear and anxiety, and social disturbances in the1960s to a "horizontal" society. It is against that context that Saul Bellow’s five novels and two short stories are examined in this dissertation, and they are considered, to a great extent, as part of the response made by Saul Bellow to some issues, generated by the social, political and cultural transformations in that period, with which American society was confronted at that time. The five novels are The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Henderson the Rain King, Herzog (1959), Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970), and Humboldt’s Gift (1975), and the two short stories "A Father-to-Be"(1955) and "The Old System"(1967). This dissertation explores those works from a social-historical perspective.In Bellow’s view, alienation is part of modern life and is the result of social modernization. Urbanization and the development of science and technology bring about too much chaos, confusion and distraction, and all this presses, seduces and misleads man to fall into a state of alienation, in which his relations to himself, to his fellow men, and to nature are eclipsed or distorted. But unlike high modernists, Bellow refuses to accept the idea that man is doomed in such a condition. Instead, he believes that man can resist and overcome alienating forces.Therefore, the question under inquiry is as follows:What strategies do the protagonists of the above-mentioned works employ to resist alienation? This study revolves around these questions:What strategies do the protagonists in Bellow’s works employ to defend their independence and give meaning to their life? How do they construct their identities in the social context at that time? And how do they see the relation of individual and society?This dissertation mainly consists of three chapters. The first chapter deals with The Adventures of Augie March and Henderson the Rain King. In the1950s, while booming American economy was on the way of transforming, in Bauman’s words, from "heavy" into "light", homogenization generated enormous anxiety throughout the country. In the meantime, the Cold War between the United States and Russia, breaking out immediately after the Second World War, plunged the country into fear and anxiety. Those two works can be considered as Bellow’s response to that situation. In the former novel, Augie resists conformity, namely, being disciplined, by employing his mobile or "fluid" strategies; in the latter, alienated by fear of death and emptiness of life, Henderson adopts similar strategies to travel so far as Africa, and move on from Arnewi to Wariri. Both novels show aspirations and anxiety of America in the1950s, and also cast light on Bellow’s faith in human’s capacity to transcend the limits imposed by time and space.The second chapter explores Herzog and Mr. Sammler’s Planet. The1960s was a key period for the US in the process of transforming from the "vertical" society to the "horizontal" one. In that decade, while "plural equality", an integral element of a horizontal society, was gaining more momentum, severe clashes broke out between "horizontal" forces like Civil Rights Movement, the Student Movement, Counterculture and "vertical" ones which stood with the existing order. American society struggled through a period of transformation from old to new, which is often bewildering, confusing, disturbing, and frustrating. Herzog and Mr. Sammler’s Planet can be regarded as Bellow’s efforts to capture that mood in the form of novel. Herzog turns to "writing and memory," namely, discursive strategies, to reconstruct the network of social relationship and his social identity that he has lost while Mr. Sammler resorts to "non-writing and memory," also discursive strategies, to construct his identity. They both demonstrate conflicts and agony of American society in that turbulent decade. These two works form a turning point in Bellow’s writing career, shifting from its obsession with the outside world to the inner one, with Herzog and Mr. Sammler more devoted to the "inner law".The relation of individual and society is one of the long-debated issues among Western scholars. The third chapter is concerned with the manner in which Bellow’s protagonists’deal with it. Central to European and American individual consciousness is the isolated individual. One of the alienating effects is that one is preoccupied with only oneself, ignoring the value of human relationship; the other is that one is reduced to a being who has no ideals and no moral code, who cherishes nothing above his personal interests. While Bellow’s protagonists identify with American individualism, they are different from other individualists:"We-I balance" is part of Bellow’s fiction, and also integral part of its protagonists’lives as a balance force. For Bellow’s protagonists, who are devoted to individual freedom, autonomy and independence,"we-I balance" is of the same worth as well. They try to keep themselves balanced between the two identities so as to prevent the alienating effects caused by individualism. In a sense, while Bellow’s fiction identifies with the Meritocracy myth, it is also an effort to criticize the myth.In the works covered by this study, Bellow’s protagonists identify with American individualism, at the centre of which is the isolated individual, but they also dedicate themselves to "we-I balance" to try to keep off the alienating effects. All those works reveal the identity crisis with which intellectual individuals in American and European societies are confronted, brought about by economic development, and scientific and technological advancement since the Second World War. Bellow is a humanist trapped in a dilemma, who casts spotlight on the crises and challenges with which humanism is confronted in contemporary America and other Western societies. He is an idealist who struggles to hold onto his faith while dramatic contemporary economic, cultural and social transformations produce overwhelming impact on American society. Bellow’s power, like those of his protagonists, results more from his inner faith than from outside reality.更多还原