The Narrative Strategies In Oates' The Falls

Joyce Carol Oates is an outstanding and prolific contemporary American writer.She has published many novels,short story collections,dramas and other literary genre works since her first collection of short stories By the North Gate was published in 1963,most of which are very popular among readers.She has won many awards in her writing life due to her excellent achievements in writing,such as the National Book Award in 1970,the finalist of the Book Award,the finalist of the Pulitzer Prize and so on.She was crowned Prix Femina of France in 2005 and Chicago Tribune Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006 for The Falls.Based on the famous French literary critic Gerard Genette's narratology,the thesis analyzes the narrative strategies in The Falls from three aspects,namely,narrative time,narrative focalization and narrative discourse.Part one is a brief introduction to Joyce Carol Oates and her novel The Falls.It introduces the life of Oates and the literature review of the studies of The Falls;it also points out the significance of the thesis.Finally,it gives a brief introduction to Genette's narrative theory.Part Two analyzes the narrative time of the novel,including the non-chronological time order,the disparate time frequency and the unequal time duration,finding that the narrative time in The Falls is not linear.The novel begins with the analepsis of Gilbert's suicidal,which greatly arouses readers' curiosity;then the prolepsis,such as the “Love Canal” lawsuit,makes the plot complete.The mixed use of analepsis and prolepsis makes the plot fascinating.The disparate time frequency stresses the status of important events in the story.For instance,the legend of the “Widow-Bride of the Falls” emphasizes Ariah's strong will,independence and courage.And the unequal time duration manifests the unique talent of the writer in arrangement of the plot.Oates can spend a lot of energy depicting the scenes of Gilbert's and Dirk's death,but she can also give no description of Ariah and the three children' life after Dirk's death.All the artful arrangement of the plot exemplifies Ariah's independence and great courage,which also makes the plot reasonably detailed.Part Three aims to analyze the different focalizations in The Falls from three aspects: zero focalization,external focalization and internal focalization and concludes that the focalization in The Falls is always changing.Zero focalization adds some necessary information to the development of the plot,making the plot complete.External focalization enables the image of characters more vivid,especially the image of Ariah.Internal focalization offers readers an opportunity to the development of the plot,arousing their sympathy with the characters in the novel.Part Four studies the variable narrative discourses in The Falls,including narrated discourse,indirect narrated discourse and dramatic narrated discourse,and finds that the narrative discourses are not stable,giving readers a better understanding of different characters.Narrated discourse keeps the furthest narrative distance with readers due to the intervention of the narrator.Indirect narrated discourse makes the image of the main characters more vivid,such as the image of Ariah and Dirk.Finally,dramatic narrative discourse enables readers to sense the emotional change of the main characters.In a word,variable narrative discourses control the narrative distance,making the characters more vivid and reinforcing the theme of the novel.Part Five is the conclusion of the thesis.Through the detailed analysis of narrative strategies of Oates' The Falls from its dislocated time,different focalizations and variable narrative discourses,the thesis comes to a conclusion that The Falls is a very excellent novel for its unique narrative strategies.And the special narrative strategies of The Falls not only makes the characters vivid but also deepen the theme of the novel,and Oates really deserves all the praise.