毛姆《风筝》中的物叙事

The Object Narrative in Maugham’s The Kite

摘要: 传统文学批评多从人类中心主义视角，对毛姆短篇小说《风筝》(The Kite)进行精神分析或叙事伦理探讨，鲜少关注非人因素的作用。本文旨在突破这一局限，引入唐伟胜教授的物性叙事研究理论框架，聚焦风筝这一核心“物”。通过将风筝视为一个具有能动性的“活力的物”，本文分析了其体验功能如何塑造了赫伯特(Herbert)以物性为核心的主体意识，以及其策略功能如何作为权力筹码干预了其婚姻。进一步，本文探讨了风筝作为“本体的物”的无限隐退性及在其被暴力破坏时，物性实在如同海德格尔“坏掉的铁锤”一样显现，成为不可调和的矛盾焦点。最终，赫伯特宁愿入狱以彻底断裂人际契约，来绝对维护物的尊严，标志着物在叙事中的地位凌驾于人本中心的社会规则之上。本文的研究旨在重新评估《风筝》的文本价值，并为英美文学的物性批评提供一个具体而深入的案例。

Abstract: Traditional literary criticism predominantly analyzes W. Somerset Maugham’s short story The Kite from an anthropocentric perspective, engaging in psychoanalysis or narrative ethics, while rarely addressing the role of nonhuman factors. This paper aims to overcome this limitation by introducing the theoretical framework of Object-Oriented Narrative Study (Wuxing Xushi Yanjiu) by Professor Tang Weisheng, focusing on the kite as the core “Thing”. By viewing the kite as a “Vibrant Thing”, this paper analyzes how its experiential function shapes Herbert’s core subject consciousness centered on thingness, and how its strategic function intervenes in his marriage by being used as a bargaining chip for power. Furthermore, the paper explores the kite’s infinitely withdrawn nature as an “Ontological Thing”, and how, upon its violent destruction, the Real Thingness manifests like Heidegger’s “broken hammer”, becoming the focus of an irreconcilable conflict. Ultimately, Herbert chooses imprisonment to completely break the intersubjective contract, achieving an absolute defense of the object’s dignity, which signals the object’s status in the narrative as superseding anthropocentric social rules. This study aims to re-evaluate the textual value of The Kite and provide a concrete and in-depth case study for Thingness Criticism in English literature.