Narrative As Communication

Doris Lessing is a famous contemporary British female writer,who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007.Her writing style is unique and diverse,covering a wide range of concerns including races,genders,wars,and human destiny,which precisely reveals her grand vision and deep concern for the society.The Marriages Between Zones Three,Four and Five(1980)is the second volume of her space fiction series of Canopus in Argos:Archives.It tells the complicated marriages commanded by the Providers between Zones Three,Four and Five.In the process,all the Zones experience gradual transformations,changing from initial isolation and opposition to the final openness and communication.By far domestic and foreign researches on The Marriages Between Zones Three,Four and Five have mainly focused on thematic interpretations and classical narrative techniques,while the research perspective of postclassical narratology is rarely applied.Based on James Phelan’s rhetorical narratology,this thesis aims to analyze the rhetorical narrative strategies of this novel from aspects of textual dynamics,readerly dynamics and narrative judgements.It elaborates how the narrative progression complicates and develops at the story level and at the discourse level,and ultimately guides readers to make narrative judgments to achieve effective rhetorical communications.First,“textual dynamics” refer to instabilities at the story level,which are mainly reflected in the complicated process of the marriage of Al·Ith and Ben Ata,and the conflictual relationships within and between Al·Ith and Ben Ata.Next,“readerly dynamics” derive from tensions at the discourse level.This thesis analyzes the multilayered rhetorical communications between author,narrator,and readers from two types of narrative distance,namely,narrative distance between narrator Lusik and authorial audience,and narrative distance between implied author Lessing and actual readers.Finally,this thesis illustrates the facilitated interpretive judgements,ethical judgements,aesthetic judgements,and their interactions,and then reveals the underlying ethics and values of the story of the marriages: only by abandoning oppositional mindsets,and by adopting a holistic view of the world can human and nature,different genders and different cultures maintain harmonious relations and gain developments.Based on the above analysis of The Marriages Between Zones Three,Four and Five from the perspective of rhetorical narratology,this thesis points out that this novel is a perfect combination of rhetoric and narrativity,in which its dynamic narrative progression invites readers to make narrative judgements and ethical thinking by conducting multilayered communications among text,author and readers.The connotative narrative ethic that different zones eliminate estrangements,and eventually achieve communications and integrations sheds great light on the development of contemporary international politics and relationships,which is exactly the prominent ethical and aesthetic value of this novel.