what situation we can imagine, and there are a bunch of different theories that critics have put forward

我们能想到什么情况评论家见仁见智
about where Ruth is and from where we hear her voice coming.

有关露丝在哪以及她的声音来自何处
One is that she's dead

有一种结论是她已死去
and she's speaking to us from the afterlife,

是死后的她在对我们讲话
that she really, somehow, did die in the lake that

她那天在湖里确实死了
day, that she fell off the bridge, or somehow the bridge is a metaphor

她从桥上掉了下去或者桥是一种隐喻
for her passage into death.

喻指她通往死亡
Or that this is an adult Ruth,

另一种结论认为这是成年的露丝
living who knows where, or just as a transient,

不知生活在哪里或者只是短期居留
who has written this account, or who speaks to us, somehow.

写下了这个故事或正在对我们讲话
I think that quotation from Marilynne Robinson that I gave you

上节课结束时我引用玛丽琳·罗宾逊的那段话
at the end of last lecture, about how she aims to speak in the voice of the consciousness of the person--

有关她如何用主人公的意识进行讲述