Studies Of Huang Yuanshen’s Version Of Jane Eyre From The Narrative Perspective

Up to now, Jane Eyre of Charlotte Bronte has been translated into more than forty Chinese versions(Wang Fei,2007). Among them, Huang Yuanshen’s version is very popular and will be adopted in thisstudy. This thesis attempts to take the theory of narrative as a tool, and the version translated by HuangYuanshen as the object, compares and analyzes the source text and the target text in terms of narrative pointof view, narrative presentation, and narrative time (analepsis) to explore whether the rendition hassuccessfully reproduced the above narrative types, and thus illustrates the influence of the transference ofnarrative types exerted on the conveyance of the thematic significance and artistic values of the source text.In this sense, narrative can prove to be instructive for literary, especially fictional translation practice,criticism, and appreciation.Narrative plays an important part in contemporary western literary criticism. It is an interdisciplineadopted to study literary works based on the linguistic mode. Classical narrative theories mainly focus onthe text itself, studying the narrator’s ways of expression on the level of “discourse”, such as the use ofpoint of view, analepsis and prolepsis, etc. It is held that narrative could benefit translation criticism withboth linguistic analysis and literary criticism, which would help to avoid impressionistic and subjectiveevaluation of literary translation and achieve comparative objectivity. Literary works, fiction in particular,are characterized by the narrative features manifested through various narrative types, the narrativeelements and the narrative style. Before the translator starts to translate a specific novel, he should first ofall have a good knowledge of the author’s narrative techniques as well as the narrative features of thesource text. Only in this way can he accurately and properly reproduce the narrative types and thus transferthe unique style and the essence of the original into the target language. Jane Eyre is then a typical examplewith distinct narrative features in which dynamic suspense, non-linear structure, mingling of synchronicityand diachronicity, well-organized plot, protagonists’ monologue and flashback are used; and thus add thecharming of this novel to readers.Through the comparative analysis of both the source and the target texts, a conclusion is made thatHuang’s version has succeeded in transferring the narrative features of the original in terms of narrative point of view, narrative presentation, and narrative time (analepsis) and achieved stylistically, thematicallyand aesthetically functional equivalence with the original. Only when the narrative type is smoothly andperfectively reproduced in the translation can it be sure that the essence and original style are wellmaintained and delivered successfully to the target language readers.