物的存在图景：麦尔维尔《白鲸》中的物叙事

The Landscape of the Existence of Things: Thing Narrative in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick

摘要: 在赫尔曼·麦尔维尔的小说《白鲸》中，鲸油、白鲸和海洋等物质要素超越了背景与工具的传统角色，在叙事进程中不断显现出物质的力量，构筑了一幅物的存在图景。借鉴唐伟胜的物叙事理论，从物作为文化符号、物的主体性和物的本体性三种物的叙事功能出发，《白鲸》中的鲸油、白鲸和海洋在推动叙事进程，影响人物命运和映照主题思想等方面具有不可替代的叙事作用，揭示出19世纪美国自由资本主义经济发展过程中人类对自然的不断索取，以及人类中心主义的思想局限。麦尔维尔在创作于19世纪的《白鲸》中对物进行了充分的描写，表现出其对物的高度关注，在物叙事的理论视域下，其物思想仍然对当代社会的经济发展，以及构建人与物，人与自然的和谐关系具有重要的启示意义。

Abstract: In Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick, the material elements such as the whale oil, the white whale, and the ocean transcend their traditional roles as mere background and tools. Throughout the narration, they continually manifest their material power, constructing a landscape of the existence of things. Drawing upon Tang Weisheng’s theory of thing narrative from the three narrative functions of things—thing as signs, thing as actors, and thing as ontology, the whale oil, the white whale, and the ocean in Moby-Dick play an irreplaceable narrative role in driving the narration forward, influencing the fates of characters, and reflecting the novel’s central themes. They reveal human’s relentless exploitation of nature during the development of 19th-century American laissez-faire capitalism, as well as the intellectual limitations of anthropocentrism. In his 19th-century novel Moby-Dick, Melville provided detailed descriptions of things, demonstrating his keen interest in them. From the theoretical perspective of thing narrative, his philosophy of things continues to offer significant insights for contemporary economic development and for building harmonious relationships between humans and things, as well as between humans and nature.