The Study Of Black Humor Translation From The Perspective Of Translator’s Subjectivity

Cat’s Cradle is a well-known novel by an American writer Kurt Vonnegut.It is a tragedy of the end of the world due to the development of technology.Three children of Dr.Felix Hoenikker use ice-9 to exchange for higher position,a short-term romance and even a period of marriage to satisfy their own desires in secret.What they have done has led to the abuse of ice-9that is known as the root for world’s destruction.Vonnegut demonstrates an absurd and indifferent world with black humor in order to satirize the conditions after World War II.Its solemn theme and absurd narration make the novel a masterpiece among works featuring black humor.This thesis concentrates on the translation of black humor by different translators in different times in China.The author integrates translation theories on the literary translation to study the relationship between the translator’s subjectivity and the representation of black humor.It is believed that the better the translator’s subjectivity is,the more complete the representation of black humor in literary translation will be.The application of the translator’s subjectivity is the most important factor in the process of translation but limited by times and a translator’s own literature attainment.What extend the translator’s subjectivity is exerted to directly affects the quality of the translation.Therefore,this thesis compares the two Chinese versions of Cat’s Cradle by Lu Fan in 1987 and Yuan Wei in 2018 from the perspective of the absurdness,the indifference in humanity,and the hypocrisy of religion to analyze the differences in the representation of black humor.Above all,it manifests the significance of the translator’s subjectivity for the study of translation of literary works featuring black humor with an elaborate case analysis from the perspective of backgrounds,personal understanding of the original work and purposes of translation.The conclusion shows that the representation of black humor and the translator’s subjectivity are major factors in literary translation,which are related to each other to jointly complete a perfect translation.