本文运用柏拉图的“洞喻”理论来观照欧茨小说《掘墓人的女儿》,论证了雅各布的伦理身份由“自我”到“玩偶”,最后沦为“囚徒”,而女儿丽贝卡则通过积极的伦理行为走上一条从“囚徒”到“玩偶”到实现“自我”的身份演变之路.父女俩截然相反的身份演变过程说明人类理想的身份具有层级性和单向性.小说既是柏拉图“洞喻”理论的文学体现,又验证了作者关于“人是伦理的存在”的观点,进而从哲学的高度指出意志冲突下的伦理选择决定了作为主体的人的生存价值.
In light of Plato's Allegory of the Cave, this essay attempts at an ethical reading of identity development in Joyce Carol Oates's The Gravedigger's Daughter. In this novel, the protagonist Rebecca's evolution, from a prisoner to a puppet and then to a self-made woman, forms a contrast to her father Jacob's regressive change from a father/husband to a puppet and then to a prisoner. Their opposite transformations show that with its multilayered performance the development of ethical identity is a one- way path. The novel not only illustrates Plato's theory, but also reveals the author's idea that human beings are ethical beings. It is the ethical resolution of clashes of wills that determines the value of a human being as a subject in the world.