本論文以班雅明探討德國巴洛克悲劇中有關神話、象徵、寓言、典型的理論來解讀《玻璃動物園》。在此種閱讀下,蘿拉最喜愛的玻璃獨角獸由具體的象徵(symbol)轉化為隱含的寓言(allegory),最後成為倫理的典型(emblem),揭露田納西•威廉在此劇中的人道關懷。首先獨角獸象徵魏費爾德一家,特別是蘿拉與社會的疏離、過度的感性與想像力。在獨角獸被來訪的紳士(吉姆)摔破後,它原本的象徵性被寓言的意涵所取代,神話般的夢想世界變成了冰冷、寂寞、破碎的荒原。此時雅曼達和蘿拉需要的是班雅明所謂的「帶著憂鬱的注視」來流失生命原本的意義。在本劇結局,在有如「凍結的一刻」裡,破碎的玻璃動物雕像變成了一種典型,成為她們能洞察寓言意義的具體化身:她們不再追求生命的獨特性(獨角獸的原始意義),而能接受在平淡生活中「被碎片所圍繞」的「真實的馬」。在最終幕的「啞劇」裡兩位悲劇女主角(母親與女兒)有嶄新的體認:那就是人人皆需要相互了解、彼此同情(這也是威廉戲劇中共通的主旨)。因此,斷了角的獨角獸變成了班雅明式的典型:「在塵世中的靈光乍現」─在這個上帝已死、破碎的、墮落的現代世界中,凡俗的得道之路。
In this thesis The Glass Menagerie is read in the light of Walter Benjamin’s theory of myth, symbol, allegory and emblem in German Baroque “mourning plays.” In this reading Laura’s favorite glass unicorn changes from a symbol to an allegorical figure and finally to an emblem, thus revealing Tennessee Williams’s moral concerns in the play. At first a symbol of the alienation, hyper-sensitivity and imagination of the Wingfields, especially Laura, the unicorn is broken by the gentleman caller Jim. At this point it takes on an allegorical meaning, that of the transfiguration of its “original” mythic dream world into an icy, lonely, fragmentary wasteland, which demands what Benjamin would call the “melancholy gaze” of Amanda and Laura to drain away its life. In this “frozen moment” at the play’s end the broken glass figurine becomes an emblem, incarnating the heroines’ allegorical insight: they will no longer pursue uniqueness (the original sense of the unicorn) in life but will be content with the “surrounding ruins” (Benjamin) of ordinary life, with a “real horse.” In the play’s closing “mute scene” (Benjamin) with the two tragic heroines, mother and daughter, there is a new (“prophetic”) understanding of the need for universal compassion (a common Williams theme). The hornless unicorn then becomes a Benjaminian emblem as “profane illumination,” a secular solution in a fallen modern world, a world in ruins, devoid of transcendence or God.
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