结束与开始：时空交错中的“弥留”与“新生”

The End and the Beginning: “Lingering” and “Rebirth” in the Interplay of Time and Place

摘要: 《我弥留之际》是福克纳杰出小说之一，讲述了本德伦一家历经磨难将其主妇艾迪·本德伦的遗体从居住地运到40英里外的杰斐逊市安葬的十日旅程经历。文章立足经典叙述学和后现代理论，对小说中的非线性叙述结构与碎片化时间展开分析，通过多重视角的内心独白、交错回溯的叙述时间与空间位移，展现了“弥留”与“新生”的张力图景。“弥留”不仅体现在艾迪生命的终结，更反映出家庭控制权、伦理秩序与传统价值的瓦解；“新生”则在达尔的疯癫、杜薇·德尔的挣扎、安斯的再婚等具体人物命运中得以显现。小说借助时空交错的结构，揭示出家庭秩序的崩解与重组，凸显个体在现代性危机中对自我身份与存在意义的重构。艾迪真正的死亡标志着她对家庭控制与影响的弥留与结束，同时这段空间变化的“朝圣之旅”促使本德伦一家构建起新的秩序，象征着开始与新生。

Abstract: As I Lay Dying is one of William Faulkner’s most acclaimed novels, narrating the ten-day journey of the Bundren family as they endure hardship to transport the body of their deceased matriarch, Addie Bundren, from their home to Jefferson, forty miles away, for burial. This paper, grounded in classical narratology and postmodern theory, analyzes the novel’s nonlinear narrative structure and fragmented temporality. Through multiple interior monologues, disjunctive narrative time, and spatial dislocation, the novel constructs a tension-laden landscape between “lingering” and “rebirth.” The notion of “lingering” is not only embodied in Addie’s physical death, but also in the disintegration of familial authority, ethical order, and traditional values. And “rebirth” emerges through the specific fates of characters such as Darl’s descent into madness, Dewey Dell’s desperate struggle, and Anse’s remarriage. By employing a spatiotemporally intertwined narrative form, Faulkner unveils the collapse and reorganization of familial structure, foregrounding the reconstruction of individual identity and existential meaning amid the crisis of modernity. Addie’s death marks the lingering and the end of her control and influence over the family, while this spatially transformative “pilgrimage” also prompts the Bundrens to establish a new system, symbolizing a beginning and rebirth.