[摘要]

玛莎·诺曼在《晚安,妈妈》中塑造了一对生活观迥异的母女。母女就是否要自杀这件事进行了争论。女儿在叙述平时生活中用了公共汽车比喻她所认为的人生，而母亲用洗衣机来比喻她所认为的人生，“公共汽车”和“洗衣机”实质上是母女俩对生活的不同认识的体现。本文从女性主义角度和现实主义角度探讨“公共汽车”和“洗衣机”的象征意义，揭示剧中两位主人公对生活的态度和认识,并从母女关系的角度探讨杰西对死亡抉择过程本质上是她追求自我、消解旧的母女关系和重建新型母女关系的过程。

[关键词] 公共汽车；洗衣机；母女关系；女性主义；现实主义

Abstract:

In ’night, Mother, Marsha Norman portrays a daughter, Jessie and her mother, Thelma. They have different life attitude. Jessie and her mother debated whether Jessie commits suicide. When Jessie told her mother about daily life, she compared bus to life that she thinks. However, her mother thought life was like washing machine. The different metaphor of the mother and daughter gives hints about their different life attitudes and shows the causes of Jessie and her mother’s perspective and attitude toward life. From feminist and realistic point of view, this essay explores the different symbolic meanings of “bus” and “washing machine”, and reveals the attitude and understanding of life of the two characters and from mother-daughter relationship, it further discusses why Jessie chose death. In reality, she wanted to pursue herself, dismiss the old mother-daughter relationship, and rebuild the new mother-daughter relationship.

Keywords: bus; washing machine; mother-daughter relationship; feminist; realism

1. Introduction
Marsha Norman is a well-known American playwright and novelist. She was born on September 21, 1947, in Louisville, Kentucky. As the daughter of a fundamentalist Methodist, she had a solitary childhood. Her mother’s religious views prohibited Norman from playing with other children and watching television and movies, and she credits her loneliness as a child as the reason why she became a writer. She was only allowed to play the piano, read books, and attend the theatre. She saw children’s plays at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, as well as later productions of Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie and Archibald MacLeish’s J. B., which is all adaptation of The Book of Job. She majored philosophy at Agnes Scoot College in Georgia and received a B.A.in 1969 and a M.A from the University of Louisville in 1971. After graduation, Norman began to work as a journalist, writing articles and reviews of books, plays and films for the Louisville Times.