“從《邱園記事》中生活的呈現看弗吉尼亞伍爾夫的現實觀”

摘要：弗吉尼亞·伍爾夫摒棄了傳統小說中對客觀事物的具體描寫，由外部世界轉向內心世界，強調人的主觀感受。在她的短篇小說《邱園記事》中，伍爾夫運用意識流和印象主義的手法，向讀者呈現了一個異化、荒誕、破碎的現實世界，旨在喚醒人們對自己生存狀態和內心世界的關注。

關鍵詞：意識流；印象主義；荒誕；生存狀態

[中圖分類號]：I106[文獻標識碼]：A

[文章編號]：1002-2139(2012)-04-0011-01

Virginia Woolf—a major British novelist， essayist， and critic—is one of the leaders in the literary movement of modernism. She proves to be an innovative and influential author in the 20th century. In most of her novels， she moves away from the use of plot and structure and employs stream of consciousness to emphasize the psychological aspects of her characters. Here by analyzing the sense of reality and presentation of life in her early work “Kew Gardens”， we mean to get closer to the psychological world in Woolf’s works and try to find out the essence of life.

As a modernist， Woolf’s sense of reality is quite different from the realists who take much delight in writing something substantial. She opposes to realism， saying that it comes so close to the substantial life as to blur people’s eyes so that they are impotent to see through life. In her mind’s eye， writers should concern for the common fate of human beings and their inner world instead of focusing on the individual fate and depiction of the outer world. And in her essay “Modern Fiction”， she clearly elaborates her preference in psychological writing by suggesting “Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad impression—trivial， fantastic， evanescent， or engraved with the sharpness of steel. From all sides they come， an incessant show of innumerable atoms; and as they fall， as they shape themselves into the life of Monday or Tuesday， the accent falls differently from of old; the moment of importance came not here but there” (Woolf， 1953). This sense of reality can be clearly seen in her “Kew Gardens”. In this story， the writer purposely weakens the plot and ignores the description of the characters. Instead， she just captures some moments to refract the existential state and spiritual world of modern people. The personalities of four groups of people are erased by the writer so that their inward activities are representational. Their illogical talking reflects the absurdity of this modern world. In a word， Woolf’s novels draw the outline of life rather than its detail， for the reality of life concerns more of traces of people’s psychological activities than the trivialities in their daily life.

If we carefully read “Kew Gardens”，we may find that Woolf’s sense of reality is clearly reflected through her presentation of life. In this story， the writer draws four living pictures. Each picture opens before our eyes an ordinary piece of life， and each， unexceptionally， reveals the absurdity and instability of life. In the first picture， the man entrusts his love in a dragonfly. In the second picture， two men are talking at random. No order can be found in their words. In the third one， two old women are gossiping about trivial things in life. The last one is about a pair of lovers. They talk monotonously and doubt about the surface of life. As for the four pieces of life， they seem to be irrelevant and the characters are just talking about nonsense. But in fact， they are closely connected in that the interior world of the characters is interrelated. Such universal themes as “love， death， trivialities in life and instability of life” once linger over their minds and these are the basic problems that human beings cannot escape from. Besides， the writer has an interesting description of the world in a snail’s eyes. Harvena Richter(1970) considers that “the snail’s eye view of the gardens and people walking by the flower bed who appear merely as feet or butterfly-like forms contributes to the story’s theme of life as a phenomenon of exquisite but meaningless pattern or color.” Here the writer’s point of view is omnipotent. She changes her point of view from time to time， interlacing the inner world of people and the snail to depict the world from people’s eyes and then define people from a snail’s eyes. In this way， people， as well as the insects in “Kew Gardens”， these pieces are moved onto the stage， each of them playing a role to compose the fantastic symphony of life. Last but not least， Woolf persistently believes that great writers should have the ability to manipulate color. Greatly influenced by impressionism， she is good at describing the scenery， capturing the beauty of light， color， sound and form in nature. And “Kew Gardens” is set in such a multicolored background. In fact， the story itself is an impressionism picture， from which we can penetrate into Woolf’s heart—a heart passionate with love for life and nature.

All in all， Virginia Woolf deserves the title of “master.” She bravely starts a war against the conventional novels and continuously innovates her writing styles. Her sense of reality has bestowed her works with unique forms and contents， which gains her a solid place in the literary world.

References：

[1]、Richter Harvena. Virginia Woolf: The Inward Voyage. Princeton University Press，1970.

[2]、Woolf， Virginia. “Modern Fiction”. The Common Reader.London: The Hogarth Press， 1953.