无声心事淌 满纸寂寞言

何琳

【摘要】在凱瑟琳曼斯菲尔德平生最后一部作品《金丝雀》中，内心独白手法得到淋漓尽致的发挥。主人公娓娓道出心灵深处最真实的情感体验，传递出了渗入灵魂的孤独意识，表现主题的同时获得了强烈的艺术感染力，堪称“绝响”。通过解读这部作品的突出叙述技巧内心独白，可以进一步探究该手法展现主题时的艺术感染力，并深刻把握曼斯菲尔德的创作思想与现代风格。

【关键词】内心独白 “金丝雀” 孤独

【Abstract】Leaded by the entire inner monologue through the whole story， Katherine Mansfields last novel ，The Canary has artistically showed the characters sonorous solitary feeling without any mention of the word “loneliness”. Then an interpretation of the interior monologue applied in The Canary and its relationship with the core theme will lead to a further exploration of Mansfields narrative techniques and modernist art.

【Key words】Interior monologue；The Canary；Solitariness

Writers in the 20th century who attempted to capture the total flow of their characters' consciousness commonly used interior monologue which represents a sequence of thought and feeling. Robert Humphrey ever gave an accurate definition of it in his Steam of Consciousness in the Modern Novel： “It is the technique used in fiction for representing the psychic content and processes of character， partly or entirely unuttered”. It turns the character into a "reflector" and creates the illusion of immediate presentation of inner experience. Therefore the reader is more ready to accept everything presented from the reflector's point of view as reality， and tends to put his sympathy on the reflector.

Katherine Mansfield， a innovator incorporating the modernist into short story writing， applied interior monologue to reveal characters inner world， which advanced the short story as an art form. The Canary， her last story， uses the first-person oral monologue toward an unseen audience to tell the experience of an isolated boarding-house keeper. The nail on the wall arouses the monologue that is concentrated on the canary which the woman breeds. She begins her telling with her memories ： "You see that big nail to the sight of the front door？ I can scarcely look at it now and yet 1 could not bear to take it out”， through which it is clear that she is highly agitated. Her loneliness is implicit in her attachment to a sensitive and emotional bird， but she is absolutely isolated.Her desperate needs for"something" to love for company and “someone”for communication would be extravagant hopes. The woman feels the bird's company so intensely that “it almost seemed to me the knives sang too， as I subbed them bight on the board”. Once she has a nightmare she can't get over. She thinks it unbearable， having none to communicate with. Only in the bird's company does she find comfort. She wishes to demonstrate to herself that she is not alone in the world. But the bird dies. All returns to vacancy， which has permeated the woman's interior monologue “the big nail formerly for a cage， but now it is the vacant cage for the bird that dies”. With its death， the spiritual pillar of her life collapses， so does her desire and love. Nothing can cover up the woman's bitter loneliness in her heart. The woman invites audience to her monologues， but none responses.

Conclusion： The Canary is just a representative work of monologue. Through the monologue the narrator tells the readers the details of the bird's life， how it was obtained， how to make its master entertained， how sad when it died and how lonely the narrator is. But what Mansfield wants to show is something bigger： in the society she lives， she is completely lonely； she needs spiritual bailment. Through the little canary， the readers can see a tragedy behind the reality. In the cold world， people have to depend on the small animals. The sweet songs just hide the tears in the human heart. Mansfield is a substantial and leading figure in twentieth-century culture.She transformed the short story in English and contributed in essential ways to Modernist literature. With her innovative talents and stylistic brilliance， she advances the short story as an art form during her short career， critically influencing its renaissance in England.

References：

[1]Katherine Mansfield， Katherine Mansfield's Selected Stories. Ed. Vincent O'Sullivan. USA： W.W. Norton&Company， Inc. 2006： 312.

[2]Robert Humprey， Steam-of-Consciousness in the Modern Novel. Berkeley： University of California Press，1955： 4

[3]馮宗璞.试论曼斯菲尔德的小说艺术[M].北京：中国社会科学出版社，1995.

[4]王素英，在孤独与死亡中写作——谈凯瑟琳·曼斯菲尔德的创作 [J]，社会科学论坛（学术研究卷），2007，7.