An Analysis Of The Narrative Strategies In To Room Nineteen

Doris Lessing is one of the most renowned writers in the world. During her artisticcareer, she has created a large number of excellent works. To Room Nineteen is one of themost famous short stories of Lessing. It tells a tragic story of Susan, who is a happyperson with a decent job and free life before marriage. But life after marriage is so boringand hopeless that it forces Susan to go into death step by step. With unique writingstrategies, Lessing presents the reader a vivid and thought-provoking story. The novel’sinfluence has far gone beyond the boundaries of time and space, cultures and countries.During the past few years, many critics have explored and studied this novel fromthe perspective of feminism, symbolism and intertextuality, etc… To Room Nineteen is acomplex short story, involving contents of different aspects. With the skillful master ofthe narrator in the novel, the well presenting of the protagonist’s speech and thought, andtogether with the use of the narrative technique of intertextuality, Lessing brings us anexcellent literary work. Through analyzing the narrative techniques of the novel, thethesis attempts to show the writer’s broad, rich and deep emotional world as well as herunique angles of observation as a writer in presenting character’s inner world, and thenreveal the epoch-making significance and practical meaning of the work.The thesis consists of three parts: introduction, the main body and conclusion.The first part is the introduction, which firstly offers a brief retrospect of DorisLessing’s achievements, her important status in literary world and her personal life. Thenit introduces the story of To Room Nineteen. Finally it makes a brief summary of theprevious research of the novel, and then points out the significance of the thesis.The second part is the main body, which is made up of three chapters.Chapter One analyzes the narrative strategies in To Room Nineteen from theperspective of the narrator. Section1gives a brief introduction to the related theories.Narrator tells a story in a narrative text, and represents the so-called voice. A narrativetext can not exist without the narrator. Section2mainly discusses the types andperspectives of the narrator in To Room Nineteen. There are different ways in the divisionof narrators in narratological studies. The narrator in To Room Nineteen is aheterodiegetic/non-character overt reliable one. As to the perspective of the narrator, the author changes it from time to time. Section3mainly discusses the functions of thenarrator in the novel. The narrator here mainly serves the functions of narrating,persuading, intervening and manipulating the narrative speed.Chapter Two analyzes the narrative strategies in To Room Nineteen from theperspective of the presentations of speech and thought. Section one gives a briefintroduction to the related theories. According to the degrees of intervention of thenarrator, G. Leech and M. Short divide speech and thought presentations into fivecategories in their Style in Fiction. The five categories are narrative report of speech acts(NRSA), indirect speech (IS), free indirect speech (FIS), direct speech (DS) and freedirect speech (FDS). Section2analyzes how NRSA serves its functions in the context. InNRSA, the narrator exerts his intervention to the largest extent, retells the character’swords and just presents its content to the reader. By this way, the narrator enlarges thedistance between himself and the character. Section3analyzes how IS and FIS servetheir functions in the context. In IS, the narrator is free to make summaries, he is able toinsert the characters’ speeches and thoughts into the whole narrative strands and fastenthe speed of narration. FIS is a very common and important way of speech presentationin the novel. Compared with the other four ways, FIS has its own advantages. First, thethird person and the past tense in FIS can keep the distance between Susan and the reader.Thus the reader can stand aside and appreciate the ironic effect of the sentences. Second,it enhances the sympathy to Susan. Third, FID can increase the semantic density of thenovel. At last, FIS has both the advantages of IS and DS. Section4analyzes how DS andFDS serve their functions in the context. DS is used to present Susan’s communicationswith other characters. Generally, direct speech is considered as the norm of speechpresentation, and Susan always tries to behave properly in front of others according tothe social norms. The narrator puts Susan’s communications with the others in directspeech so as to reach a coincidence between the form and the content.Chapter Three analyzes the narrative strategies in To Room Nineteen from theperspective of intertextuality. Section1gives a brief introduction to the related theories.Section2mainly discusses the intertextual relations with the other writers’ books. Thissection mainly analyzes the intertextual relation between To Room Nineteen and VirginiaWoolf’s A Room of One’s Own; in addition, it also discusses the intertextual relation between To Room Nineteen and Michael Canningham’s The Hours. Section3mainlydiscusses the intertextual relations with Lessing’s other works. Here Lessing’s TheGolden Notebook and The Summer before the Dark are taken as examples to discuss thisproblem.The conclusion generalizes the whole thesis, points out the breakthroughs made onthe basis of the academic studies made by the previous scholars and presents thesignificance and the value of the thesis.