Narrative Forms And Gender Politics

Feminist narratology is an interdisciplinary literary critical theory which has come into being since the1980s. It unites the analyses of forms with the study of ideology, and therefore overcomes the respective weakness of feminist literary criticism and structural narratology. In literary criticism, feminist narratology probes into writings from different perspectives and accumulates plenty of analytical methods.Feminist narrotologists are concerned about the structural features and relationships of the stories. The initiator of feminist narratology, Susan S. Lanser, considers narrative forms as the ground and tool for political struggles, and focuses on"voice"of women's narration. Here"voice"refers to the opinions and viewpoints expressed which are women-centered. Narrative works are texts of forms. However, the narrator is a social being, and therefore what kind of narrative strategies or voices are employed have much to do with the narrative authority and women's ability to"say". Narrative works can be divided into two levels: story and discourse. Since feminist criticism usually only pays attention to the story level and tends to ignore the expression level (i.e. the discourse level) of the story, feminist narratologists can apply and develop the systematical study of structural skills in narratology to make deeper analyses of the discourse level of the narrative works.George Eliot is regarded as the greatest British Victorian and modern novelist,and has always been a focus of feminist researching field. Her unique feminist point of view draws much attention from the feminist critics. However, she is the most difficult and controversial figure for feminist literary criticism. She lived the life of an emancipated woman but she never wrote about it. Apparently she was conventional in many of her views, especially in many of her views towards women. As the means of expressing her views, her novels are of the same case.Pursuing a kind of balance in the contradiction between patriarchal society and writing, Eliot went through a period of branch road. The revelation of her gender status led to a sharp decrease in her authorial authority established under the male pseudonym. Her real status as a professional woman contradicted with her ideal of a housewife, which, together with the social historical context, caused her hesitation and concession in narration after the revelation of her gender status. Middlemarch is just a typical representation of this hesitation and concession.George Eliot's works have been studied from many perspectives, such as Marxist, feminist, historical point of view, etc, of which much has been found of interest and value. For instance, Structuralists have been working on her supposedly weak spot—her structure since the 1950s. The complaint about her poor structure can actually be traced back to her own time, especially at the publication of her masterpiece, Middlemarch. Even Henry James spoke of Middlemarch as Eliot's best and also weakest novel. That was because for him, the book was"a treasure house of details, but it is an indifferent whole". In addition, the political philosopher and satirist W. H. Mallock pointed out that Middlemarch was distorted by masses of irrelevant details. Similar misunderstandings have continued long after her death. Thus, we can say, to a certain extent, it is this old complaint about her"loose structure"that causes the structuralist concern of her works. Once the research started, more and more discoveries have been made, such as the stealthy convergence and the massive network in Middlemarch. Therefore the structuralist study of Eliot's works, especially of her Middlemarch, just refutes the traditional censure. Using Middlemarch as the text, this thesis aims to join these two kinds of previous studies together and make a review of Middlemarch with the interdisciplinary literary critical theory—feminist narratology, exploring the relationship between story and discourse, narrative strategies and gender.Undoubtedly, George Eliot is an outstanding female writer. Influenced by advanced thoughts, Eliot transcends her age in both feminist consciousness and narrative forms. In that specific social historical context, the narrative strategies in Middlemarch successfully show her characteristics of female writing, and meanwhile deliver her unique feminist consciousness to readers.