摘要

毛姆是英国现代著名的戏剧家和小说家。由于经历了十九世纪向二十世纪过渡的动荡时期以及两次世界大战，毛姆的作品兼具现实主义和现代主义双重特征。《刀锋》是毛姆现代主义时期的代表作，也是他自己最喜欢的作品。在这部小说中，毛姆在叙事技巧上做了大量尝试。其中最为突出的便是运用与作者同名的“我”作为叙述主体，恰到好处的对情节进行干预，体现了高超的讲故事技巧。本论文在细读《刀锋》的基础上，以小说的叙述者作为探讨的核心，着重分析这部小说中的叙述者形象及其功能。希望通过分析,对叙述者有深入的了解,对叙述者干预功能有清楚的认识;重要的是通过对叙述者这一叙述主体的研究,对小说表现的人的存在和意义这一深层主题内涵有深入的体会。

关键词：毛姆，刀锋，叙事者, 叙事者功能

Abstract
 
William Somerset Maugham is a famous English modern playwright and novelist. As living at the turn of two centuries, Maugham’s works feature both the characteristics of realism and modernism. The Razor’s Edge is his magnum opus and his favorite, in his own words. In this novel, Maugham made a deal of attempts in narrative techniques, thus we can appreciate the unique way of narration while reading the novel. It is an innovation to adopt a new narrating figure “I”, who sharing the same name with the author, as the main narrator. Maugham’s excellent storytelling skills are displayed through these successful attempts. Based on an intensive reading of the novel The Razor’s Edge, this paper analyzes the narrator’s image and his functions presented in the novel in order to understand narrator’s functions of a fiction and facilitate the comprehension of this novel’s deep implication.

Key words: W.S. Maugham; The Razor’s Edge; narrator, narrator’s function