从存在主义视角解读《千万别让我走》_英语论文

An Existential Reading of Never Let Me Go 

摘要

石黑一雄是当代英语世界杰出的小说家。他的第六部小说《千万别让我走》讲述了一名“克隆人”凯茜的一生。作者通过细腻的笔触刻画了害怕死亡的“正常人”与迷茫困惑的“克隆人”之间的差异和冲突。

本文旨在借助克里斯特瓦的卑贱理论分析《千万别让我走》中“正常人”对“克隆人”的恐怖情绪。出于对“卑贱”的恐惧，“正常人”挤压了“克隆人”的生存空间，剥夺了“克隆人”的社会存在。卑贱最后通过艺术进行净化和升华，寓示隔绝“正常人”和“克隆人”的界线崩塌，卑贱不复存在。在作品中，石黑一雄用十分细腻的文笔刻画卑贱，体现了作者对人类存在焦虑的思考：在生物科技的冲击下，人类利用克隆技术延长寿命，治疗疾病而拒绝对“克隆人”负责，使得社会道德功能脆弱甚至丧失。归根结底，作者怀着积极的态度号召人们在享受科技的同时加强对人性和灵魂的思考。

关键词：石黑一雄；《千万别让我走》；社会存在；卑贱

Abstract

Kazuo Ishiguro is a remarkable novelist in English-speaking world. His sixth novel Never Let Me Go depicts the life course of a cloned woman, Kathy. Ishiguro employs Kathy’s memories to unfold the difference and conflicts between the normal people with hidden fear of death and the bewildered cloned people. 

 This paper applies Julia Kristeva’s theories of abjection to approaching the normal people’s symptom of phobia against the cloned people. Driven by this sort of phobia the normal people crowd out the cloned people and deprive the cloned people of their social existence. In the end, the abjection is purified and sublimated by means of art which symbolizes the collapse of the borderline between the normal people and the cloned people. The felicitous depiction of abjection in the novel reveals author’s anxious reflections on human existence. Struck by biological technology human beings employ cloning technology to lengthen their lives and treat diseases. Yet they refuse to take care of the cloned people leading to the fragility even absence of the function of social morality. In the final analysis the novel reveals that Ishiguro holds a positive attitude toward human beings and calls on people to reflect on what human being is or what soul is in the era of advanced science.

Key words: Kazuo Ishiguro; Never Let Me Go; social existence; abjection

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abstract (Chinese) ii

Abstract (English) iii

Introduction 1

Chapter One  Abjected Existence in Never Let Me Go 5

1.1 Cloned students as the abandoned abjects 5

1.2 Cloned students as the indivisible existence 7

Chapter Two  Forming Conditions of Abjection in Never Let Me Go 9

2.1 Inside the borderline 9

2.2 Outside the borderline 10

2.3 Tension between the inside and outside 12

Chapter Three  Cathartic Abjection in Never Let Me Go 14

3.1 Struggling abjects 14

3.2 Catharsis of abjection 16

Conclusion 18

Work Cited 20