On The Progression And Judgment In Virginia Woolf’s The Waves From The Perspective Of Rhetorical Narratology

Drawing on the narrative theory and method put forward by James Phelan,the present thesis addresses the progression and readers’ judgment in Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves.By analyzing the shared reading experience of The Waves with the interpretative tool of rhetorical narratology,the study aims at a comprehensive interpretation and evaluation of the connotation and artistic value of The Waves.According to James Phelan,there are two elements of narrative located at the intersection between authorial design and reader response and correspondingly there are two levels in narrative.The first level is the dynamics of characters,events and narration,and the second level is the dynamics of readers’ response.In light of this theoretical assumption,the paper first makes a preliminary investigation and division of the narrative progression of The Waves,and finds that the global tension between the characters’ attitude towards death and their contemplation about the meaning of life and the voice of the impersonal narrator constitutes the core power to promote the narrative progression in The Waves.Next,the paper discusses the interpretive judgment,ethical judgment and aesthetic judgment made by readers in the process of reading The Waves.For interpretive judgment,the reader needs to understand the unique narrative form and its meaning in The Waves,including the analysis of the symbolic meaning of the description of the natural scene in the interlude,and the interpretation of the complex information contained in the six characters’ monologues.In ethical judgment and aesthetic judgment,readers need to pay attention to the ethical values conveyed to them by the implied author in the text,and make judgments on the ethics of the reading experience and the overall aesthetic value of the novel.In both ethical judgment and aesthetic judgment,readers need to go through two steps of reconstruction and reevaluation: first,to understand and restore the ethical and aesthetic principles that the narrative text intends to construct,and then,to have a dialogue with them.While James Phelan believes that through this reading method the narrative may eventually reinforce,expand,challenge,or even change readers’ knowledge,thoughts,beliefs and values,the thesis attempts to shed light on some new understandings of The Waves and Virginia Woolf’s novel writing.