A Feminist-Narratological Study Of The Mill On The Floss

George Eliot was one of the most important woman writers in Victorian England. The Mill on the Floss, her only autobiographical work, is one of her early works. Most Eliot scholars have approached The Mill on the Floss from the perspectives of psychoanalysis, religious and moral criticism, feminist criticism and other critical approaches. However, there has not yet been a systematical study of this novel from the feminist-narratological perspective, neither at home nor abroad.With the application of feminist-narratological theories, this thesis purports to make a study of the narrative art and feminist theme in The Mill on the Floss by focusing upon narrative voice and narrative focalization. In so doing it will conclude that on the one hand, George Eliot made great efforts to resist against patriarchal oppression of women and struggle for more equal rights of women by establishing her feminist narrative authority, on the other hand, bearing the limitations of her time, George Eliot's ambivalent and incomplete feminist ideas are definitely revealed in the novel. Hopefully, by analyzing the novel from feminist-narratological perspective, this paper will enrich the understanding of George Eliot and her time.Structurally, the main body of this thesis will fall into four chapters except the Introduction and Conclusion. Chapter one will mainly focus on authorial voice. Chapter two will analyze the ingenious adoption of personal voice of female characters in the novel. Chapter three will concentrate on omniscient narrator-focalization. Chapter four will analyze the application of limited character-focalization in the novel. By studying the narrative strategies in the above four chapters, the conclusion part of this thesis will combine George Eliot's narrative art with the analysis of her feminist literary theme in The Mill on the Floss so as to dive deep into George Eliot's unique feminist literary idea.