爱的隐喻与进步话语的反讽：《世界博览会》中埃德加的不可靠叙事研究

Love’s Metaphor and Irony of the Myth of Progress: A Study of Edgar’s Unreliable Narration in World’s Fair

摘要: 研究以詹姆斯·费伦的不可靠叙事理论为分析框架，考察了多克托罗小说《世界博览会》中埃德加叙事的不可靠特征，揭示了作品的修辞伦理与思想内涵。研究发现，埃德加的第一人称回顾性叙事视角打破了成长小说的常规设置，呈现出成年叙述自我逐步退隐的特殊结构，构成了叙述不可靠性的重要前提。沿事实与事件、知识与感知、价值与判断三轴展开分析可见，埃德加在家庭人物形象刻画、犹太伤痛理解、公共历史事件伦理判断等方面均存在不同程度的叙述偏差。从契约型不可靠叙述来看，埃德加的表层认知偏差之下还暗含着隐喻层面的可靠性。读者在辨识其叙述局限的过程中，可逐步体悟犹太家庭的温情内核，感知作品对美国进步话语的温和反讽。文章弥补了现有研究对该作品叙事策略关注不足的缺憾，以期为《世界博览会》提供新的阐释视角。

Abstract: Drawing on James Phelan’s theory of unreliable narration, this study examines the features of Edgar’s unreliable narration in E. L. Doctorow’s World’s Fair and brings to light its rhetorical ethics and thematic implications. The study finds that Edgar’s first-person retrospective narration departs from the conventions of the Bildungsromane. The adult narrating self gradually recedes from the narrative, establishing the premise for the novel’s narrative unreliability. Reading along the three axes of facts and events, knowledge and perception, as well as ethics and evaluation, this article shows that Edgar’s account is unreliable to varying degrees in his portrayals of family members, the understanding of Jewish trauma, as well as the ethical evaluations on public historical events. However, viewed through the lens of bonding unreliability, beneath Edgar’s surface cognitive distortions there lies a metaphorical reliability. As readers recognize the limits of his narration, they gradually apprehend the warmth of the Jewish family and perceive the novel’s gentle irony directed at the American myth of progress. This article addresses the relative neglect of narrative strategy in the existing scholarship, hoping to offer a new interpretation of World’s Fair from a narratological standpoint.