Toward a Theory of Narrative Reliability In Modern Fiction: James, Conrad and Ford Reconsidered

Abstract

本篇論文旨在建構現代小說敘述聲音的可靠性。論述將集中探討詹姆斯的《碧廬冤孽》，康拉德的《黑暗之心》，和福德的《好軍人》等三部作品中的敘述問題。主要研究這三部作品中第一人稱可靠性的問題，諸如詹姆斯作品中飽受詆毀的女管家，康拉德故事裡的馬婁，和福德小說的杜威爾等三位敘述者，皆是本文討論的重點。晚近小說的演變蛻化已逐漸朝向作者隱遁，形式上不再以全知觀點主導本文的趨勢。本篇論文將質疑當代文學理論在探討敘述作品的結構時，刻意強調文本詮釋不穩定性的特質。姑且不論結構主義和解構主義是否塑成形上的架構或詮釋的依歸，我們不認為詹姆斯，康拉德，和福德的作品要求讀者參與無止境的嬉戲無羈的詮釋活動。強調重建現代小說的敘述聲音容或不夠新奇詭譎，卻是為認識文學的老話題，再添注一道活水生機。

This paper is an attempt to establish a theory of problematically reliable narrative in modern fiction. I choose to restrict my focus to a single narrative problem posed by the works of three novelists: James`s The Turn of the Screw, Conrad`s Heart of Darkness, and Ford`s The Good Soldier. There is a problem of the reliability of their first-person narrators: among them James` s much-maligned governess, Conrad`s Marlow, and Ford`s Dowell. By concentrating on the fiction of the three novelists, this paper tries to problematize the aporia of reliable narrators. For nothing characterizes the development of modern fiction from Thackeray to Joyce more clearly than the gradual disappearance of the author from his place of editorial omniscience above the text. In addition. I have not been persuaded by those contemporary approaches to narrative which insists upon the text`s hermeneutic indeterminacy as its primary formal feature. Whatever the merits of structuralism and deconstruction as metaphysics, I do not believe that writers like James, Conrad and Ford asked of their readers a free play of interpretive activity. My commitment, which admittedly denies me access to a certain interesting responses to the literary text, is to a reinvigoration of an older way of understanding literature.