平庸恐惧症与澳大利亚民族性格

《呼吸》是蒂姆·温顿第四次斩获澳大利亚文学第一奖——迈尔斯·富兰克林文学奖的作品,小说刻画了澳大利亚人强烈的反平庸意识。小说人物极度恐惧平庸,疯狂逃离平庸并付出惨重代价。平庸恐惧症昭示的是澳民族性格中的一个显著特征即文化自卑。小说跨越的时代自上世纪六七十年代一直延续至新世纪,体现了以作家温顿为代表的整整一代人对“平庸”的思考,《呼吸》准确把握了多元文化时代澳大利亚人仍然无法完全摆脱来自文化自卑心理的影响。

Mediocrity-Phobia and Australian National Character

Breath, depicting a strong sense of mediocrity-phobia of Australian people, wins Tim Winton his fourth Miles Franklin Award, Australia＇ s top literary award. The characters in the novel are extremely terrified of ordinariness and try every means to escape it, which costs much to the Australians. Mediocrity-phobia results from a typical Australian national character, that is, cultural cringe. Covering an age period from the sixties of last century to the beginning of the 21Bt century, Breath represents Australia＇ s one whole generation＇ s thinking over mediocrity. Breath accurately shows that Australia is still influenced by the deeply-rooted awareness of cultural cringe even in the muhicuhural age.