英语论文】不懈的爱的试验封闭于语言的物质性——约翰巴斯《迷失在开心馆》A Continuing Love Experiment Enclosed in Language’s Materiality in John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse

1、美国文学期末论文 题 目： 不懈的爱的试验封闭于语言的物质性约翰巴斯迷失在开心馆学 院： 外 国 语 学 院 专 业： 英 语 学生姓名： 学号： 指导教师： 职称： 完成时间： 成 绩： contentsabstract:3摘 要：31. introduction of the mobius strip42. languages materiality43. languages materiality experimented in menelaiad44. language assuming the emptiness of love loss65. conclusion8不懈的爱的试验封

2、闭于语言的物质性约翰巴斯迷失在开心馆a continuing love experiment enclosed in languages materiality in john barths lost in the funhouse abstract: john barth is one of the most famous american postmodernism novel writers. his work, lost in the funhouse, offers positions that refute the positions offered in the work pre

3、ceding just as he exhorted in his literature of exhaustion. significantly, lost in the funhouse ends with the affirmation of languages materiality and shows the authors profound interest in the process of artistic creation, naming literary experiments. in addition to that, these stories exemplify qu

4、ite clearly the novelists aesthetic belief that language arises from love loss and love moves narrative creation.key words: experiment, language, materiality, love摘 要：约翰巴斯,美国后现代主义文学的代表小说家之一，其作品迷失在开心馆提出传统的文学形式与技巧已在前人那里走到了尽头一如他在枯竭的文学所陈述的。迷失在开心馆验证了语言的物质性以及巴斯对于艺术创作过程即文学试验的强烈兴趣。除此之外，书中的短篇小说相当清晰地例证了这位小说家的

5、美学观,即语言产生与爱的缺失以及爱驱使叙事创作。关键词：试验；语言；物质性；爱 a continuing love experiment enclosed in languages materiality in john barths lost in the funhousexie keke 1. introduction of the mobius striplost in the funhouse is a short-story collection composed by john barth as his experimental meta-fiction. what interes

6、ts the reader most is that in the very beginning barth asks the reader to cut out a little strip of paper when opening the cover of the book. then the reader will get a mobius strip. in other words, a continuous loop, written “once upon a time there was a story that began once upon a time there was

7、a story that began once upon a time”, is about stories about stories. 2. languages materiality there are totally three major reasons, as far as im concerned, accounting for his special trick. the first point is that language is material. when cutting a book, readers get a visual demonstration and a

8、visceral response that a story is in a material container. all too often, readers reluctantly admit it but barth invites readers to do this to his story. the second point is that narrative has a form, and that it can be constructed and built. its like a craft. readers have a little tape and little s

9、cissors which lead to the little craft project, naming the mobius strip. thus stories are crafts. they get built of the material of language. and the last point is that form is both endless and closed. it is both repetitious and endlessly filled with possibility. because, when reading the words in i

10、ts mobius strip form, readers are actually repeating a beginning over and over and over again, which inspires that feeling of possibility, but its also terribly boring. this is not an interesting story for there is, in fact, no content at all. 3. languages materiality experimented in menelaiadfurthe

11、rmore, when reading the story menelaiad in the book, menelaus predicament with helen occurs to the readers. he spares helens life in troy and brings her home, and this is the story that he has been telling himself:i forbore, resolved to accept in lieu of her death a modest portion of heartfelt grove

12、l. further, once shed flung herself at my knees and kissed my hem i would order her supine and mount more as one who loves than one who conquers; not impossibly, should she acquit herself well and often, i would even entertain a plea for her eventual forgiveness and restoration to the athena house.

13、accordingly i drew myself up to discharge her objection-whereupon she gave over cleaning her nails and set to drumming them on one knee. up the mast half a dozen times i stormed and shinnied, took oar to my navigator, lost sight of nestor, thundered and lightened through poseidon finny fief. when ne

14、xt i came to season, i stood a night slyly by while she dusk-to-dawned it, then saluted with this challenge her opening eyes: “man born of woman is imperfect. on the three thousand two hundred eighty-seventh night of your parisian affair, as i lay in simois-mud picking vermin off the wound i got tha

15、t day from cunning pandarus, exhaustion closed my eyes. i dreamed myself was pretty paris, plucked by aphrodite from the field and dropped into helens naked lap. there we committed sweet adultery; i woke wet, wept. . .”my taffrail oaths took tritons stamp-ground; i fed to the fish my navigator, knoc

16、ked my head against the mast and others; hollered up a gale that blew us from laconic melea to egypt. my crew grew restive; when the storm was spent and i had done flogging me with halyard, i chose a moment somewhere off snakd libya, slipped my cloak, rapped at helens cabin, and in measured tones de

17、clared, “forgive me.” adding firmly, “are you there?” (qtd. in barth 146)all the while, menelaus is pathetic. he runs through all these stories about himself, and as each one fails to win him back into helens cabin, he comes up with another one. this is a certain kind of exhausted narrative. also th

18、is suggests a kind of exhaustion of language and ambroses use of these packaged phrases in lost in the funhouse suggests the impossibility of using all that tradition, all that stock of language, to adequately encounter what daily life will bring us, and especially to adequately inhabit something li

19、ke desire. as for this, barth wrote a very famous essay called the literature of exhaustion which criticized a lot of the work that was being done. he said there were two kinds of artists: ones who are “technically up to date,” and ones that are not. hence, for barths part, what exhausts language is

20、 the failure to keep technically up to date, and that means in innovation in form. menelaiad is where barth really stakes his claim for innovation. of course, he runs a certain kind of risk in this story collection. the more stories readers read, the more readers would see the kind of risk hes runni

21、ng. some of the stories are self-consciously, boringly metafictional. they sound like all those stories about somebody writing a story about themselves, about themselves writing a story who is also writing a story about themselves writing a story. theres no kind of life in it. its all about that end

22、less regress. accordingly, barth is taking a risk that that mobius strip emphasizes and that the stories in the book act out. however, the questions “why is it worth it to him to take that risk? whats he trying to teach readers about narrative and about language that makes it worth this risk?” conti

23、nually haunt readers. menelaiad and the mobius strip indicate that its the failure of any of these stock narratives to have the effect of restoring love and desire, but its more than that. its playful in that barths effort at showing the exhaustion of narrative produces a kind of new pleasure in nar

24、rative. referring to the former points demonstrated by the mobius strip, languages material nature has been fully informed and in addition to that, because language is material, it has form, it has both closeness and possibility, and its susceptible to the workings of craft and also unpredictable. i

25、f the mobius strip were thrown in someplace, it future happening is beyond guessing. apart from that, the sense that language is material means that it can be separate from people and have a kind of life of its own. so its by pointing it out, and then parodying it, that john barth begins to renew th

26、e resources of fiction.4. language assuming the emptiness of love loss by taking a deep look at menelaiad, there are deeper and more difficult issues at stake, though and this is what is really at the heart of menelaus story. menelaus is obsessed with the question of why helen chose him among all he

27、r suitors. and, when he asks on their wedding night, she gives him an answer that only makes him more obsessed with the question. hes asked his question. “speak,” he commanded. she whispered, “love.” (qtd. in barth 155)but the problem whether its a verb or a noun plagues menelaus. he doesnt know how

28、 to take it, so here it becomes a verb: he held her fast; she took him willy-nilly to her; i feel her yet, one endless instant, menelaus was no more, never has been since. (qtd. in barth 155)pronoun changes can be observed which eradicates identity and eradicates sense of self. “she took him willy-n

29、illy to her” (qtd. in barth 155). menelaus is telling a story about himself, seemingly, but who is the “i.” “i feel her yet” (qtd. in barth 155). there is some residual identity left over. in his red ear then she whispered, “whyd i wed you? less what than who, et cetera?” “my very question.”“speak,”

30、 menelaus cried to helen on the bridal bed. i reminded helen in her trojan bedroom. i confessed to eidothea on the beach. i declared to proteus in the cave-mouth. i vouchsafed to helen on the ship. i told peisistratus at least in my spartan hall. i say to whoever and where i am and helen answered,“l

31、ove.”he complied. he complied as to an order. she took his corse once more to elysium, to fade forever among the fadeless asphodel; his curious fancy alone remained unlaid; when he came to himself it still asked softly: “why?” and dont i cry out to me every hour since. (qtd. in barth 155)consequentl

32、y, that self-alienation causes him to lose his love. later in the story he stops sleeping with her because he just cant get it out of his mind. hed rather sit and wonder. his curious fancy is more active than his desire. or his desire to know is more active than his desire to love. but there is yet

33、a complication to this problem. its not just about menelaus and what he chooses to do with his desire. its also about helen and her action and her answer. menelaus reflects it:seven years of this, more or less, not much conversation, something wrong with the marriage. helen he could hold; how hold m

34、enelaus? to love is easy; to be loved as if one were real, on the order of others: fearsome mystery! unbearable responsibility! to her menelaus signified something recognizable, as helen to him. whatever was it? (qtd. in barth 156)there is that sense that the other person looking at you, loving you,

35、 assures you somehow of your reality, that youre real, that youre not an imaginary being. so, its a way of reminding you that youre not really alienated, but this is what menelaus cannot get his head around. he cannot understand that he could be loved for no reason and proteus sort of gives a sense.

36、 helen chose you without reason because she loves you without cause; embrace her without question and watch your weather change. let go. (qtd. in barth 161)its a failure of faith in aphrodite. so, to accept love is to accept your being and to have faith that love affirms it, affirms that being. this

37、 is what menelaus has to ask forgiveness for. he doesnt have enough faith in love just to be and to accept the affirmation of his being that helens reasonless, causeless love embodies. here, barth is asking a really serious question about the compatibility between life and voice. in actuality, ambro

38、se in ambrose his mark is saved from the bees lighting on his mouth because his mouth is on his mothers breast. hes asleep there having nursed. its as if the bees which signify eloquence if they land on your mouth, they land on his eyes and on his ears instead. ambrose cant have both that connection

39、 with his mother and that kind of eloquence. he cant have love and language somehow which is a very freudian understanding of how language works. once freud tells a story about a child playing whats called the “fort-da” game, in other words, “here-away.” a little two- or three-year-old kid has a bal

40、l. he throws it away and then retrieves it, he throws it away and retrieves it, and freud theorizes that he does that and he says, “fort, da, fort, da.” he does that because the language is a way of controlling his mothers absence and the ball stands in for the mother. it disappears and then it come

41、s back. it disappears and comes back, and at that time his mother is going out to work for the first time, and the boy is getting used to letting her go. so, language arises from that loss. and menelaus problem with helen suggests that incompatibility of being connected to the other, and here across the line of gender, connected with the other and somehow being able to be assimilated into language, and the silence of the oracle on the question, “who am i?” interestingly enough, readers get a large part of blank on the page 158, naming silenc