The Narrative Art Of The Mill On The Floss

George Eliot is a famous Victorian novelist in the nineteenth century. Her novels are well-known for her profound philosophic thoughts, her fervent concern with ethics, religion and social politics and the detailed description of her characters'psychology. The Mill on the Floss is one of George Eliot's early novels and an autobiographical one.George Eliot's works are mainly studied from the perspectives of structuralism, archetypal criticism, psychological realism, feminist criticism, moral analysis and religious analysis, etc. However, home and abroad, there are no systematic researches on her novels in terms of narratology.This thesis intends to discuss George Eliot's narrative art in The Mill on the Floss from the perspective of narratology.Chapter One investigates George Eliot's ingenious commentary, which can be either implicit or explicit in The Mill on the Floss. Implicit commentary is concerned with the ironic tone the author takes when narrating. While explicit commentary can be divided into interpretation, judgment and generalization.Chapter Two discusses George Eliot's complex employment of free indirect discourse. By using free indirect discourse, George Eliot successfully reveals the inner struggles of characters and confirms the rationality of narrative plot.Chapter Three analyzes George Eliot's technique of dual spatial presentation. In The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot employs both aperspectivial spatial presentation and perspectivial spatial presentation to present the narrated space. This chapter discusses the functions of these two modes of presentation respectively.By analyzing The Mill on the Floss from the perspective of narratology, this thesis enriches the study of George Eliot and broadens the field of studying George Eliot's works.