A Study Of Narrative Strategies In The Early 20～(TH). Century English Autobiographical Novels

The present dissertation studies the narrative strategies of autobiographical works of the early 20th. Century represented by Sons and Lovers, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Pilgrimage, and Orlando with special attention to the narrative focalization in the four novels, in order to find out the relationship and interaction among the author, narrator, literary text, narratee, and reader. Meanwhile, the dissertation explores how these literary texts, which break some of the narrative norms, represent the tradition and innovation of narrative strategy in English autobiographical writings of this special period of time.As narrative texts, autobiographical novels are supposed to follow their norms in narration: (1) the author, the narrator and the protagonist should be the same person; (2) the story is usually narrated in the first person; (3) the story should be narrated from a retrospective viewpoint, therefore requires the dual focalization of experiencing self and narrating self. However, there exists in the texts under discussion some anti-norm narration: (1) the independence and collaboration among the author, the narrator and the protagonist; (2) the coexistence of the presence of retrospective and synchronic narration; (3) the existence of the combination of multipersoned narration and multi-mode focalization. In the light of classical narrative theory, especially the theories related to narrative focalization, the dissertation tries to explain the narrative features of the four autobiographical novels. The dissertation also utilizes feminist narratology and rhetorical narratology and the theory of autobiography along the way.The first chapter sets as its main target a generic study of the four literary texts. In this part, the author maintains that these four texts could first of all be read as autobiographical novels. Then it explains the reason they could also be read as Bildungsromans. Consequently, the dissertation regards them as autobiographical Bildungsromans.The second chapter focuses on the formal study of narration and focalization to find out their distinctive features in the four novels. Apparently, these four novels are mainly narrated in the third person singular; however, each has its unique features so far as their narrative modes are concerned. Sons and Lovers is identified for its broken narration and shift of focalizer. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man uses internal focalization; while Pilgrimage adopts limited character narration. Orlando is distinctive for the intrusion of biographer-narrator. This chapter also analyzes how the choice of a certain narrative mode influences the theme and narrative effects.The third chapter first analyzes how the author's gender may influence the form of narration; it then discusses the narrative technique in relation to the interaction between the author and reader. It is made up of two sections. The first section adopts the feminist narrative theory to explain the influence of gender politics on narration by comparing the male and female narrations in the four texts. Feminist narratology pays attention to narrative structure with its focus on gender politics. The second section uses rhetoric approach to narrative to explain first the appearance of narrative intrusion, the appearance of second person narration, and then the interaction among author, narrator, text, narratee, and reader.The fourth chapter adopts the theory of autobiography to interpret the features of narration and focalization. The first section in this chapter focuses on the key concepts in autobiographical writings, that is: (1) the relationship between life and art as proposed by the four authors under discussion, (2) the construction of self, and (3) the relationship between truth and fiction. The second section compares the norms and anti-norms in these novels as far as their narrative focalizations are concerned. The third section explores relationship between narrative focalization and narrative ethics. The author maintains that the genre of the novels plays an important role in explaining the narrative modes.