A Narratological Study On Women’s Death In The Blind Assassin

Margaret Atwood(1939-)is one of the most prominent contemporary female writers in Canada,who is crowned as “Queen of Letters”.So far,she has written 18 novels and many short stories,poems and literary criticism,etc.Atwood’s tenth novel,one of her masterpieces,The Blind Assassin,was published in 2000 and won her the Man Booker Prize for the first time,which embodies her unique writing style.Setting Canadian social changes from the late 19 th to the late 20 th century as its background,this novel unfolds around the protagonist Iris Chase’s life and memory and tells the fate of five generations of the Chase family,which presents a vivid picture of Canada in that period.Through the narration of various women’s death,the novel focuses on women,who were not able to lead a life by their own will under complex social and historical circumstances,which reveals the complexity of women’s survival plight.On the theoretical basis of structuralist narratology,this thesis attempts to analyze women’s death in The Blind Assassin from time,characterization and point of view.Through the study on women’s survival plight,the causes of their deaths and the enlightenment from it,it aims at praising women’s strength of awakening,resistance and cooperation,so as to arouse contemporary readers’ attention to women’s survival crisis,to awaken women’s self-consciousness and to affirm the importance for women not to live blindly.This thesis includes five chapters:Chapter One,the introduction part,gives a brief introduction to Atwood’s life and The Blind Assassin as well as the previous studies on them from abroad and at home.Besides,it summarizes the theoretical framework and the argument of this thesis.Chapter Two discusses how the use of time highlights women’s plight in the novel.The novel’s two minor story levels,which have no time dimension,are weaved into its main story level,which has a clear time network,to narrate women’s death from order,duration and frequency of time.It increases the difficulty in reading and thus enhances readers’ participation.By so doing,the complexity of women’s fate is unraveled through the complexity of stories.Chapter Three analyzes the relationship between characterization and women’s tragedies.Female characters in the novel are characterized through direct definition,indirect presentation and analogy,which unravels the tragedies of their death through the instabilities between them and their surroundings.Chapter Four analyzes women’s death presented from different points of view.In this novel,some similarities,questions,contrasts and suspense are presented through women’s death narrated from different points of view,which leads to the excavation of the causes of it and the enlightenment from it.Chapter Five,the conclusion part,summarizes the previous chapters and clarifies the significance of the narratological study on women’s death in The Blind Assassin.Firstly,the ingenious use of narrative strategies in this novel has broaden its way of presenting women’s death,which increases its complexity and enhances readers’ participation.Secondly,the novel has revealed the tragedies of women’s death through characterization.Finally,the novel arouses readers’ interest by exploring the causes of and the enlightenment from women’s death through presenting it from different points of view.Through Canadian women’s change from living blindly to awakening,to resistance and then to independence,the novel has revealed women’s survival plight under complex social and historical environment and emphasizes how important it is that women should not live blindly.