An Exploration Of Narrative Identity In E.M.Forster’s The Longest Journey

The Longest Journey(later shortened as Journey)is mainly autobiographical among Forster’s works,in which the protagonist,Rickie,embraces plentiful similarities with Forster himself,and it is seen as a reflection of Forster’s life and thoughts.For a long time,most critics have paid much attention to modernism,philosophical thinking,and male friendship and homosexuality reflected in the book.In contrast,few researchers have concentrated on the narrative identity conveyed by the novel.Forster uses a consistent narrative strategy to create this novel,in which he achieves the author’s “autofiction” through the heterodiegetic narrator.The narrator functions as Forster’s spokesman to tell Rickie’s life story and helps Forster to construct his identity in the narrative.The exploration of narrative identity aims to reveal Forster’s views of the individual and society and to build personal identity and ethical identity in the narrative.Based on the view of narrator’s status as Forster’s “autofiction”,and supported by Paul Ricoeur’s narrative identity theory,this thesis reveals Forster’s identity anxiety in the narrative,tries to construct the subjective identity from the narrative integration of Rickie as “oneself” and as “the other” and seeks identity cognition.Through a careful interpretation of the novel,this thesis maintains that the novel reflects two kinds of identities in the narrative.One is the personal identity;the other is the ethical identity.The former is based on the historical and fictional narrative,characterizes Rickie as“oneself” and obtains self-identification in dialectics of identity as sameness and identity as selfhood.The latter is addressed in the social domain.Rickie,as “the other”,finally achieves the unity of otherness and subjectivity in the narrative.Upon expansion of the narrative,Rickie’s life story is narrated and Forster’s anxiety and confusion on identity are eliminated.The introductory part of this thesis includes the brief introduction of the novel and the retrospection of Forster’s life,some meaningful researches at home and abroad,an explanation of the relationship between the narrator and the author,and the interpretation of the ideas about narrative identity proposed by Paul Ricoeur.Chapter one firstly analyzes Rickie’s anxiety on identity deriving from the anxiety on the body and the anxiety on narrative.At first,the body is related to the narrative in a very particular way,giving a reference to the individuality.The anxiety is demonstrated in two aspects: the fertility anxiety disclosed by the intense implication of the pursuit of the Holy Grail and the gender identity crisis spurred by the emergence of “new women”in the 19 th century.Besides,the anxiety on identity in the field of narrative identity researches is manifested as the lack of “narratability” on life,which moves the individual body into a broader social understanding.The narrative is usually expressed in the form of storytelling and writing.Rickie recalls his childhood in an attempt to retell his life story but fails in it because of the fragmentary memory of parents and family life.On the other hand,Rickie tries to achieve self-identification through writing but fails repeatedly and turns to Sawston School in disappointment,revealing his anxiety on identity for lack of “narratability” on life.The second chapter focuses on analyzing the personal identity in the narrative.Forster juxtaposes himself with Rickie to represent “oneself” and embarks on narrative text based on the real disabled self.Forster constructs the ideal self in fiction and projected onto Gerald with a healthy body and Herbert with masculinity.But Gerald’s sudden death and Herbert’s hypocrisy bridge the gap between the real self and the ideal one,dispelling the physical anxiety.Rickie finally obtains the real self with identity as sameness.Mythological elements are an essential feature of Forster’s narrative.Rickie is obsessed with the Demeter-like fantasy mother and adores the dryad “new woman”Agnes.Forster attempts to suspend the identity dilemma in fantasy,but encounters the confrontation between fantasy and reality,and ultimately accepts the fantastic self with identity as selfhood.The third chapter mainly discusses the ethical identity in the narrative.First of all,Forster,being in Victorian society and history,places Rickie as “the other” in the narrative relationship and highlights the ethical demands of society and history.Forster portrays Rickie as a typical middle-class intellectual,speaks about his moral characteristics,explores the otherness under the ethical disciplines,and explains the ethical identity in the correlation between the ethical disciplines and the otherness.Second,society and history are closely related to human beings,mirroring the past and referring to the future.Under the background of the industrial development,humans call more for the emotions between man and man,man and nature.Forster describes Stephan as a representative of the human’s emotional connection and pictures Rickie’s emotional change towards Stephan.Thus,Forster reflects the subject in the narrative in order to explore the subjectivity and establish the “narratability” of life,and finally refers to the ethical identity leading to the future.To sum up,this thesis takes the narrative identity as the analytical approach and examines Forster’s thinking about himself and society.Through the shaping of Rickie,Forster achieves the unity of “oneself” and “the other”,explores the different aspects of personal identity,completes the construction of the ethical identity,and thus comes out of the dilemma of narrative identity.