作者：田笛guestsofthenationfrankbinaryoppositiondutywar
摘要：Guests of the Nation is a short story written by Frank O’Connor,a driven and prodigious writer,who was arguably one of Ireland’s most complete man of letters in the 20th century.Despite the fact that he lived a life of many facets,he was best known for his short stories.In a life span of 63 years,he produced 11 volumes of short stories,among which the title story of Frank O’Con⁃nor’s landmark collection Guests of the Nation was always widely reviewed,generally in positive terms.As a story set against the background of the Irish War of Independence,Guests of the Nation depicts an extraordinary situation where Irish soldiers and Eng⁃lish hostages become friends.To perform their duty,the Irish guards executed the two English hostages although camaraderie was created among them.This short story has attracted numerous critics to analyze it from different perspectives,each of whom has their own notion on the theme of the story.However,most of the scholars focus on analyzing the characters,few of them have noticed bi⁃nary oppositions in the story.There are several pair of binary oppositions in the story,for instance,enemy and friends,friendship and duty,comedy and tragedy,life and death,etc.Therefore,the present paper will examine it from the perspective of binary oppo⁃sition,in an attempt to tap deep into the conflict between humanity and the national interest,as well as the absurdity of war.
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