Analysis Of Educated:A Memoir From The Perspective Of Spatial Narrative

Educated: A Memoir is the first autobiographical novel by Tara Westover,a young American writer and scholar of history.It tells a true story concerning Tara’s growth and transformation through higher education in the form of an autobiography.Since its publication in 2018,Westover’s novel has attracted extensive attention among literary researchers and literature lovers from all over the world.However,as far as Westover’s autobiographical novel is concerned,most of the online research papers abroad and at home are book review articles.Only a few related research papers discuss topics such as success story by means of the power of spirit,family violence caused by sibling bully,psychoanalysis of compromise,family education issues,or marginalized families in American society respectively from the perspectives of psychology,sociology,or aesthetics.In fact,Westover’s text contains a great number of narrative spaces and plenty of spatial metaphors,which extremely enhance the richness and tension of her text.This thesis explores Westover’s novel from such three perspectives as modes of spatial construction,dimensions of spatial narrative and connotations of spatial changes by employing such integrated spatial narrative theories as Frank’s “Spatial Form”,Lefebvre’s “Social Space” and Foucault’s “Space of Power”.Westover’s novel contains plenty of narrative spaces,which are not only the background and container of the development of the story,but also take part in and affect as the narrative technique the shaping of characters,the development of plot and the construction of theme meaning.These narrative spaces are endowed with multiple meanings of society,history,culture,aesthetics,ethics,and so on.Westover’s spaceoriented narration presents a nearly thirty-year tough journey of the leading character Tara from childhood through adulthood.During this process,she pursues her dreams as she grows,feels perplexed as she pursues her dreams,reflects on her life as she feels perplexed,and feels relieved as she reflects on her life.Based on Frank’s idea of “social form”,the chapter of “Modes of Spatial Construction in Educated: A Memoir” discusses the three modes of spatial construction included in Westover’s novel,which are linear spatial construction,embedded spatial construction and juxtaposed spatial construction.The construction and change of narrative spaces offer a powerful guarantee for the realization of narrative function.The linear movement,embedding and juxtaposition of narrative spaces have an internal association with the confusion,reflection,flee,growth,recall,construction of self-identity and self-actualization of the individual.Based on Lefebvre’s idea of “social space”,the chapter of “Dimensions of Spatial Narrative in Educated: A Memoir” analyzes the types of space in Westover’s novel,including physical space,social space,and mental space.Physical spaces are the places in which the story is narrated and the plot is developed.Social spaces are the ones occupied by social activities and social organizations,the ones where various rights and cultures clash with one another,and the ones that social groups perceive and use.These social spaces are able to reflect the values,preferences and pursuits of the social groups.The mental spaces are the representations of perception and cognition when outer living experience is projected into the inner hearts of the characters.They are effective means by which the character knows the outside world and the inside self.Westover’s autobiographical novel contains four macro social spaces such as Buck’s Peak,Brigham Young University,Cambridge University and a collection of other landmark social spaces.These four macro social spaces involve many micro physical spaces and mental spaces,which are not only the backgrounds and places where Tara’s story took place,but also the narrative spaces of Westover’s novel.By using flashback and narration,the author connects the spaces of diverse types in different ways to provide opportunities for the protagonist to change her fate.Tara became the master of her own fate by means of spatial changes from the junkyard at the Buck’s Peak to Harvard campus so far away from her original family.Based on Foucault’s idea of “space of power”,the chapter of “Connotations of Spatial Changes in Educated: A Memoir” deals with the effects of spatial changes on Tara’s life and destiny,including Tara’s mental conflicts caused by spatial changes,the formative effects of spatial changes on Tara’s ideology and the healing effects of spatial changes on Tara’s psychological trauma.It further probes into the significance that education has for Tara’s self-consciousness awakening,self-redemption,selfconstruction,self-actualization and making peace with herself and her family.Tara’s progressive spatial changes in Westover’s novel promoted the development of its plot and the deepening of its theme.It is the spatial changes that enabled Tara to break like a bird out of her “cage” to flee to her mountain,to perceive herself and the outside world with her own eyes,to voice her own ideas and opinions about things around her,to construct her self-identity and define herself,to realize her self-transformation and become a person of independent characters,to achieve her self-actualization,and above all to write her own history while reading others’ history.This thesis studies Tara Westover’s critically acclaimed novel Educated: A Memoir from such three angles as spatial construction modes,spatial narrative dimensions,and spatial change connotations by employing the spatial theories such as Frank’s “Spatial Form”,Lefebvre’s “Social Space”,and Foucault’s “Space of Power”,and further manifests the technique of narrative space construction,the design of spatial narrative dimensions,and the profound implicature of spatial changes in the text.