第141期：她说：“读者，我嫁给了他。”

想成为我们的主播，欢迎加微信 xdfbook 投稿。 一段美文，一首英文歌，或是一点生活感想，全由你做主。 《她说：“读者，我嫁给了他。” 》 “Reader, I Married Him”: The Unfeminist Reason We Love Charlotte Brontë It is a truth universally acknowledged that the only line from an English novel more lavishly overused and adapted than the opening sentence to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice1) must be Charlotte Brontë’s triumphant climax to Jane Eyre: “Reader, I married him.” Well, “universally acknowledged” might be a bit strong2), but I think we can all agree that it’s more likely to show up not only in modern adaptations of the original classic, but in less traditionally literary places: Facebook engagement announcements! Adorable stationery! Endless wedding blogs! This spring, in time for Brontë’s 200th birthday, there’s even a new collection of short stories, edited by Tracy Chevalier3), entitled: Reader, I Married Him. The stories, penned by celebrated women writers, all claim Jane Eyre as inspiration. “Reader, I married him” doesn’t appear in every story, but some variant appears in many. A few other Jane Eyre do-overs from the past year: The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell, a swoony4) modernization about Brontë’s supposed last living relative coping with a bookish mystery and a romance with her aloof tutor; and Re Jane by Patricia Park, a retelling set in contemporary New York, where race and gender politics get a much-needed update. Each of these books has its own, sometimes overused or tooth-achingly sentimental, deployments of That Sentence, respectively: “Reader, I married him”; “Reader, I left him.” In her introduction to Reader, I Married Him, Chevalier digs into why this simple sentence has had such lasting power, out of all of the simple and baroque5) sentences in Charlotte’s oeuvre6): “Reader, I married him” is Jane’s defiant conclusion to her rollercoaster story. It is not, “Reader, he married me”—as you would expect in a Victorian society where women were supposed to be passive; or even, “Reader, we married.” Instead Jane asserts herself; she is the driving force of her narrative. But we’ve come a long, long way since Victorian times. Merely taking the active voice in announcing one’s marriage no longer signals a girl-power rebellion; in fact, the proud emphasis it places on the marriage, by 2016, seems like a bit of a throwback to pre-women’s lib times. “Reader, I married him” might be the most conventional, even coy way a modern woman could announce the crowning traditional achievement of her life: getting hitched7). A particularly bookish friend once told me, with some satisfaction, that she’d already settled on the romantic-yet-dignified Facebook post to announce her eventual betrothal8) to her long-term boyfriend: Yes, “Reader, I’m marrying him.” No wonder the quote is tempting to the modern woman who still yearns toward the safe, established comforts of wedded coupledom, and not just because the pedigree9) of the allusion is unimpeachable. There’s no Austen-esque irony to sully a joyfully entered union, but it’s not drippily sentimental, either. It’s simple rather than bombastic10), but holds a subtle note of triumph. “Reader,” Eyre and her many echoes say, virtually clearing their throats to ensure attention is being paid, “I married him.” The enduring popularity of this phrase, long past a time when a woman using an active rather than a passive voice in describing her nuptials11) might be considered revolutionary, suggests there’s something other than patriarchy12)-smashing at play. Today, in 2016—200 full years after Charlotte Brontë’s birth—women can vote, own property, have high-powered careers, and even have children without direct male involvement if they wish. But the quietly smug affirmation of marital achievement persists. At this point, it reads more as a reassertion of marriage as a high form, if not the highest form, of female personal achievement; boilerplate13) language for saying “look, stop what you’re doing and recognize that I’ve married a man. I did it.” ………… 如果说英语小说中有一句话比简·奥斯汀《傲慢与偏见》的开首语更常被人引用及改写，那必定是夏洛蒂·勃朗特在《简·爱》的高潮部分满含得意的那句话：“读者，我嫁给了他。”这是一条举世公认的真理。 当然，“举世公认”也许有点言过其实，但我认为大家都同意这一点，这句话不仅极有可能出现在这部经典原著的各种现代改编版本中，而且会出现在一些不那么传统的文学场合：Facebook网站上的订婚通告！可爱的信封！不计其数的婚礼博客！ 在今年春天恰逢勃朗特诞辰两百周年之际，甚至还有一本由特蕾西·雪佛兰编辑的新的短篇小说集出版，名字就叫《读者，我嫁给了他》。这些小说均出自著名女作家之手，她们都声称《简·爱》是其灵感之源。“读者，我嫁给了他”这句话并不会在每部作品中都出现，但是许多作品中出现了这句话的改编版。 去年还出现了其他几部基于《简·爱》二次创作的作品：凯瑟琳·洛厄尔的《楼上的疯女人》是一个充满现代气息的令人着迷的故事，讲述了一位据说是勃朗特最后一位健在的亲戚忙于破解有关书籍的秘密并处理与自己冷漠的导师之间的浪漫情事的故事。帕特里夏·帕克的《雷·简》是对《简·爱》的重叙，背景改为当今的纽约，作品中的种族与性别政治都做了必要的更新。其中每本书都分别用自己的方式用到了那句话，或过度使用，或极其感伤：“读者，我嫁给了他”和“读者，我离开了他”。 勃朗特的作品中有那么多简洁而又充满巴洛克风格的句子，为什么唯有这句有这么持久的魅力呢？在为《读者，我嫁给了他》写的前言中，雪佛兰对此进行了剖析： “读者，我嫁给了他”是简为自己跌宕起伏的故事设定的具有挑战意味的结局。这句话不是“读者，他娶了我”——如你所期待的那样，在维多利亚时代女性应该是被动的；甚至也不是“读者，我们结婚了”。相反，简勇敢地说出心声。她才是推动故事发展的力量。 但是自维多利亚时代以来，我们已取得了长足的进步。仅仅在宣布结婚时采用主动语态不再是显示女性力量的反抗行为。事实上，到了2016年，这句话对婚姻引以为傲的强调倒有点像一种倒退，又回到了妇女解放之前的那些日子。“读者，我嫁给了他”可能是现代女性宣布她一生最大的传统成就——结婚——时最常见甚至有点害羞的表达方式。 我的一位特别书呆子气的朋友曾满意地告诉我，她已决定用浪漫而又颇有尊严的Facebook发帖方式来公布自己和交往多年的男友最终订婚的消息：是的，“读者，我要嫁给他了”。难怪对于那些仍然渴望安全、确定定、和谐的夫妻关系的现代女性来说，这句引言会有诱惑力，而且原因还不仅仅是它的缘起无可指摘。这句引言中没有奥斯汀式的那种败坏欢欢喜喜的结合的讽刺，但也未过于多愁善感。这句引言朴实而不夸大，但有一丝微妙的胜利口气。“读者，”简·爱和她的众多效仿者说道，为了确保别人注意，实际上说之前还清了清嗓子，“我嫁给了他。” 这句话一直以来倍受青睐，在女性用主动语态而非被动语态宣布婚讯的时代过去很久之后仍然如此。这种情况可以说是革命性的，也表明个中缘由不仅仅是要捣碎男权社会。而今，在2016年，在夏洛蒂·勃朗特出生整200年之后，女性可以投票，可以拥有产权，可以身居要职，要是愿意的话甚至可以无需男性直接参与就能生儿育女。但对婚姻成就的暗中认可并未改变，这种认可还带着自鸣得意的意味。从这一点来看，这句话更像是宣称婚姻即便不是女性个人成就的最高形式，也可算是一种较高形式，也像是一种陈词滥调，相当于说，“哎，放下手中的活。看看吧，我嫁人了。我做到了。”…… 文章摘自：《新东方英语》杂志2016年8月号