【作者】 王莉；

【导师】 刘海平；

【作者基本信息】 南京大学 ， 英语语言文学（专业学位）， 2012， 博士

【摘要】 玛莎·诺曼(1947-)是当代美国重要的剧作家。自创作伊始,她的戏剧作品就体现出浓厚的悲剧色彩以及对人物内心世界的深刻剖析。虽然以往的研究从多种视角对诺曼的作品进行阐释,但是对她作品中对过去和记忆的凸显却未能给与充分的探讨。因此,本文试图考察诺曼在作品中对过去和记忆的关注以及戏剧呈现。诺曼作品中有三种不同的过去：创伤性过去、让人渴望的过去以及虚构的过去。本文考察了诺曼如何运用各种戏剧手段呈现不同的过去和记忆以及剧中人物对不同的过去采取的态度和做出的行动。第一章研究了《出狱》和《黑暗中的行者》中的创伤性过去以及主人公对创伤性过去由压抑到和解的过程。在这两部作品中,创伤性过去对主人公心理和情感上造成伤痛,他们试图压抑以便忘记往事。然而他们的压抑行为却造成了生存危机。在朋友和家人的帮助下,主人公能正视创伤性过去,与之取得和解。在诺曼看来,这种和解并非抹杀过去,而是将创伤性过去重置于他们的生活轨迹之中,这有助于主人公重新审视自我与社会和世界之间的关系,对未来的生活怀有希冀。在《出狱》中,诺曼使用了闪回、分裂人格、空间限制以及两个演出场地并置等手段表现阿林作为儿童性虐受害者以及社会受害者的创伤性记忆。尽管阿林试图压抑她的创伤性记忆,现实中的各种诱因却不断地引起这些闯入性的记忆。最终阿林通过与过去的自我的重新整合与创伤性过去取得和解。在《黑暗中的行者》中,山姆因压抑母亲去世的创伤性记忆而对其生活造成了严重的后果。诺曼采用具有象征意义的母亲的花园以及房屋外墙所代表的场外空间表现山姆对创伤性记忆的压抑。好朋友的去世激起了他对母亲的去世的创伤性记忆。妻子不懈的帮助和同理心让他走出创伤性记忆的阴影,重新与家人建立情感联系。第二章分析了《第三和橡树》、《僵持》和《爱上丹尼·布恩》中让人渴望的过去以及主人公由怀旧到幻灭的过程。三部作品中的主人公均沉迷于对过去的回忆不能自拔,因而他们无法客观地认识过去与现在。事实上,过去并非他们想象的那样美好。他们在认识到怀旧情感的不切实际以及生存现实后,试图走出过去的阴影接受现实。通过对主人公由怀旧到幻灭的戏剧呈现,诺曼对过度的怀旧情感进行了批判,因为怀旧情感使得主人公无法在现实生活中实施有效的行动。《第三和橡树》中诺曼运用不在场人物的物品以及在场人物对不在场人物的语言模仿表达对过去的怀旧情感。两位女主人公在洗衣店的偶然相遇促使她们认识到自己过去的婚姻的现实,进而对自我进行重新认识。台球厅的两位男主人公通过接受舒特的死亡以及乔治即将死去的事实认识到曾经的美好时光已经过去,从而接受了现实,并消除了二人之间的误解和隔阂。在《僵持》中,诺曼通过现代牛仔对西部逃犯故事的痴迷以及西部逃犯对现代技术进步的不接受态度来表现对过去的怀旧。但是,现代牛仔的死亡促使西部逃犯反思他所处的时代的暴力性质。现代牛仔的葬礼的舞台呈现是对西部逃犯时代结束的哀悼,而西部逃犯的重生表现了诺曼对人性以及人类的灵活性和适应性的赞扬。《爱上丹尼·布恩》作为一部时光穿越剧,把弗洛的个人记忆与对丹尼·布恩神话的集体记忆相交织。诺曼通过分割舞台空间将布恩时代和现代博物馆并置。弗洛现代生活中的感情失意让她对布恩时代充满怀旧情感,然而她的时光穿越之旅却让她意识到布恩作为神话人物的虚构性。第三章探讨了《晚安,母亲》和《特鲁迪·布鲁》中虚构的过去以及主人公勇敢面对的过程。两部剧作中主人公的过去是在由他人或自己虚构的世界中度过的。通过对过去的回忆,主人公认识到生活在虚构的世界中让她们的生存毫无意义,无法实现自己的人生价值。她们通过选择摆脱这种虚构的过去,包括做出死亡的选择,展示了自我价值。《晚安,母亲》通过母女二人的对话展现了女儿的过去是生活在母亲编织的世界中。诺曼采用具有象征意义的阁楼表现杰西过去生活的停滞状态以及生活中的秘密。杰西的自杀是她摆脱过去并实现自我控制的方式。在《特鲁迪·布鲁》中,由于整个剧是金杰的回忆,诺曼采用了空舞台以及插曲式结构。生活在幻想的世界中使得金杰对现实中的人和世界无法正确认识。她逼近的死亡促使她认识到过去幻想世界的虚构性,从而摆脱了幻想人物,回到现实世界中的家庭。诺曼对过去和记忆的关注实际上是她对人如何生存的哲学性思考。剧中人物对过去和记忆的态度体现了他们的存在焦虑。通过表现人物能够通过解决与过去的关系而获得他们认定的更好的存在方式,诺曼认为人能够通过个人努力改变存在方式并实现自己的人生价值。更多还原

【Abstract】 Marsha Norman (1947-) is a major contemporary American playwright. Since the very beginning of her writing, she has shown a tragic understanding of life and created a series of psychological portrayals of characters. Despite the diversified perspectives on Norman’s plays, Norman’s engagement with the past and memory has been paid short shrift. Therefore, this dissertation examines Norman’s concern with the past and memory and how Norman dramatizes them in her plays. This dissertation makes a close examination of Norman’s concern with the different pasts in her plays: the traumatic past, the wistful past and the fictional past. Norman incorporates multifarious artistic measures to represent the different past and memories of the characters and the dynamics of the past with the present. The protagonists show different attitudes toward the past and their actions are of crucial significance for their present life and future survival.Chapter One is an exploration of Norman’s dramatization of the traumatic past and the protagonists’progression from repression of the disruptive memories to reconciliation with the traumatic past in the two plays Getting Out and Traveler in the Dark. It reveals that the protagonists’traumatic past has a catastrophic impact on their lives and leaves psychological and emotional scars on them. However, the repression of the traumatic past renders them incapable of dealing with the present crisis. Reconciling themselves with the traumatic past with the presence of an empathic community makes it possible for the protagonists to heal and face the future with hope. To Norman, the reconciliation is not a purging of the traumatic past, but the integration of it into the protagonists’life which is of crucial importance for them to reconsider themselves in relationship to society and the world. In Getting Out, Norman uses flashback, split selves, spatial confinement and juxtaposition of two performance areas to represent Arlene’s traumatic memories of childhood sexual abuse and victimization. The intrusive traumatic memories are triggered by present cues despite her efforts to repress and dissociate them. Arlene achieves her self-reintegration through reconciling herself with the traumatic past. In Traveler in the Dark, Sam’s repression of the traumatic memory of the death of his mother causes dire consequences. Norman employs a symbolic setting—the dilapidated mother’s garden and the extrascenic space represented by the house facade to reveal the repression of his traumatic memories. The death of his best friend reminds him of the traumatic memory of the death of his mother. With the sustained support and empathy of his wife, he is able to come to terms with the traumatic memory and reestablish connection with his family.Chapter Two examines Norman’s dramatization of the wistful past and the protagonists’ change from nostalgia to reevaluation of both the past and the present in the three plays Third and Oak, The Holdup and Loving Daniel Boone. The protagonists are ensnared in their nostalgia for a past way of life to which they have no way to return. However, reminiscing the past in preference to the present prevents them from reflecting on the past and facing the present in an honest manner. The reappraisal of their obsessions with the wistful past causes them to realize the impracticality of their nostalgia. The disillusionment with the past resituates them in the present condition and reorients them to the future with an awakening. Through dramatizing the protagonists’ change from nostalgia for to disillusionment with the past, Norman shows her critique of the nostalgic point of view because indulgence in the past leads to unproductive engagements with the present. In Third and Oak, Norman deploys objects which are closely related to the absent characters and the imitation of the absent characters’ words and gestures to represent the onstage characters’ nostalgia for the past. The women’s chance encounter at the laundromat provides them a time and space for them to reevaluate their marriage and themselves. The acceptance of the death of Shooter and the imminent death of George prompts the two African American men in the pool hall to realize the pastness of the old days and makes it possible for them to patch up the former ruptures and clear up the misunderstandings. In The Holdup, Norman critiques the nostalgia for the western outlaw era. The nostalgia for the past is presented through the modern cowboy’s obsession with the western outlaws’stories and the Outlaw’s unwillingness to accept the technological advancements. But the nostalgia for the western outlaw era is disrupted by the death of the modern cowboy which causes the Outlaw to reflect upon the violent nature of the past era. The metaphorical funeral on stage mourns the passing of the western outlaw era. Nevertheless, the ritual of rebirth which strip the Outlaw of his former identity reflects Norman’s praise of humanity and the flexibility and adaptability of humankind. In Loving Daniel Boone, a time travel play, the individual memory of the heroine is interlinked with the collective memory of the Daniel Boone myth. Dividing the stage into two parts, Norman uses them to stand for the different venues in two time frames, partly in a modern-day museum and partly in Boone’s time. The heroine cherishes nostalgia for Boone’s time because of her loneliness in the modern time as a result of failures of romantic relationships. The time traveling to Boone’s time demystifies the heroine’s memory of Boone as the archetypal hero.Chapter Three investigates how Norman dramatizes the fictional past and the protagonists’ transformation from avoidance to confrontation in ’night, Mother and Trudy Blue. The past of the protagonists is based on a fictional one concocted by others or themselves. The protagonists’purposeful probing into the past unlocks the truth of their past. The realization that their past life of avoidance has not rendered their life to be a meaningful one prompts them to abjure the past. Through the confrontation with the past, even through death, the heroines display their self-determination and power in controlling their own lives. The duologue by the mother and the daughter in’night, Mother reveals that the past life of the daughter is lived through a fabricated reality made by the mother. Norman makes use of the symbolic attic to represent Jessie’s past life of stagnation and secrets. Through suicide, Jessie cuts ties to the past of powerlessness and achieves self-control. In Trudy Blue, a memory play which transpires in Ginger’s mind, Norman employs the pliability of the minimalist stage and adopts an episodic structure. Totally immersed in her inner world with imaginary selves, Ginger has maintained a distorted vision toward the real world and the surrounding people. The realization of the unreality of her inner world triggered by her imminent death propels her to walk out of her fictional world and establish connection with her family.Norman’s concern with the past and memory embodies her philosophical meditation on the existential angst of her characters. Dramatizing characters who can disentangle their memory of the past shows Norman’s persistence in human capability in solving crises and realizing the significance of their lives.更多还原