Space Narration Of Outcry And Hesitation

The dissertation Space Narration of Outcry and Hesitation, with the novels Outcry and Hesitation as the subject of research, analyzes a series of questions from the perspective of space such as the formation of narration and the features of the narration pattern, as well as the techniques and methods adopted to construct the narration utilizing space in the novels. The dissertation is aimed at that through examining the relationship between space and narration construction in Outcry and Hesitation, the paper attempts to explain the reason why these stories could only happen in the certain space instead of other space, and thus figures out the "original" features in terms of space which make the modern literary canons Outcry and Hesitation distinguished from other novels. The features are embodied in the issues that small and isolated indoor spaces, the best places for personae to exhibit their soul, are chose and they are usually unchanged, contain rich social connotation and thus profoundly influence the construction of narration... The basic conclusion drawn in the dissertation is that the factor space in Outcry and Hesitation plays a very important role (to a greater extent than that of the factor time) in the narration; it's not because actions take place in the spaces but because these actions happen based on the spaces, therefore, all these spaces are unique "the one", which is irreplaceable.The dissertation constitutes six chapters including introduction, main body of four chapters and conclusion.The introduction contains two parts. The first part is devoted to the question "what is space narration?" Space in this dissertation refers to the concrete scenes and places where the stories happened and characters took actions, while space narration contains two meanings. In terms of the works themselves, space is made use of to construct the narration. In terms of researchers, space is an angle to analyze the formation of narration, which is a comparatively new perspective for research compared with the previous way of analyzing time. In this research area, the reason why space can take part in and exert influence on the narration of novels is addressed, that is, space is usually of social dimensionality, which is especially obvious in Outcry and Hesitation.The second part is to answer the question "why Outcry and Hesitation should be analyzed from the angle of space?" Through analyzing Lu Xun's purpose to create literary works, it is found that his thinking mode was spatial when he focused on Chinese people's spiritual world. That's to say, when he saw the superficial turmoil in Chinese society, what he actually got was the rootedness of Chinese people's degeneration. When he transformed his thoughts into the characters in his novels, what he pursued was various concrete embodiments of the national degeneration rather than the process of formation. Therefore, in constructing the narration of Outcry and Hesitation, time became the second, while the space reflecting the national degeneration came to the front. This is proved by the concrete performances in the works.Chapter one focuses on pattern of space narration in Outcry and Hesitation. From the angle of space, the narrative pattern in these two novels can be classified into two categories: fixed space narration in which narration is done in a fixed and unchangeable space, and moving space narration in which the narration is done in more than one space. (Because in such a case characters move to several spaces, it's named "moving space narration") Moreover, the fixed space narration is classified into absolute fixed space narration and comparative fixed space narration. The absolute fixed space narration refers to that the space in a novel is the only one and it can't be separated into smaller and comparatively independent space. What can be done is to separate it into some dependent and impaired partial space. For instance, the restaurant in In the Restaurant, Si Ming's house in Soap and so on. The comparative fixed space narration refers to that a large space is fixed but it can be cut into several comparatively independent space units. The reason why every pattern of space narration can come into being is emphasized.Chapter two and three probe into narrative function of concrete spatial images in Outcry and Hesitation, namely, the relationship between them and the narration construction. The first section discusses the relationship between spatial image of the town (mainly Wei Zhuang and Lu Zhen) and the narration construction. Wei Zhuang in The True Story of Ah Q is a hierarchical town; Ah Q was born in the bottom level but always dreamt to get to the top level. His ideal and action plus oppression posed by the hierarchisiam engendered the inner impetus of the narration, which is actually the essential cause of Ah Q's "spiritual victory". The social dimensionality of Lu Zhen in Tomorrow reveals the fact that people dealt with everything under convention. Lu Xun wanted to tell us that Chinese conventions covered too much pain, fatuity and even cruelty. This is how the narration of Tomorrow can come into being. Lu Zhen in Blessing presented a space full of folk culture and the miserable experience of Xiang Linsao was considered ominous. Therefore, Lu Zhen's repulsion for Xiang Linshao and her pursuit to the acceptance became crucial in the construction of narration. The second section researches on the relationship between some unnoticeable religious cultural space and the narration construction, for instance, graveyard in Medicine, the temple and nunnery in The True Story of Ah Q and so on. This section analyzes how their religious and cultural background took part in and exerted influence on the narration. The third section probes into the narrative function of spatial images of "salon" (referring to tea shops and restaurants in Outcry and Hesitation) or "drawing room". As for tea shops and restaurants, they were the public spaces in isolated and underdeveloped small towns in the latter-day China and the centers for people to gather and exchange information. Their narrative function is embodied in three parts, namely, narrative mode of "commenting /commented", forming the stunt of the novel, and forming scene of mass; drawing rooms in Outcry and Hesitation were treated as public spaces, where the owner and visitors had meaningful conversations. The fourth section discusses the narrative function of spatial image of "road". The real roads in the novels offered the episode of "encountering", acquaintances often "spoke" as well as "took actions" and "watched" when encountering, while the strangers usually "watched"; the roads in metaphorical sense deepened the narration, and the "new road" in Regret for the Past even became the driven force for people's behaviors and thus connected various events into a whole.The fourth chapter analyzes techniques and methods adopted when constructing narration by means of space. First it comes to the skills to deal with space. In terms of the choice of space (large area), he chose his hometown, not only because he's familiar with everything there, but also because he thought the wide rural area was the place where people were persecuted by Chinese feudalism most. In terms of text-production of space, Lu Xun adopted the strategy of "exacting spirit and abandoning appearance". The core of "spirit" lies in the spirit of "irony house" of these spaces. In terms of control of space, Lu Xun mainly adopted the method for control of viewpoint. Then it comes to the skill to deal with time, which is actually a problem of relationship between time and space. Lu Xun's method is to compress time and give prominence to space, and latter "swallowed" and "cut" the time in certain sense, and finally a "spatial form" mentioned by Frank occurred. The structure of novel also presented a spatial structure distinguished from traditional novels which contain the temporal structure.The conclusion part briefly analyzes the essential reason why the original space narration of Outcry and Hesitation can come into being. That can be traced back to Lu Xu's strong pursuit of enlightenment and his care for Chinese people's spiritual world. What's more, this part also runs back over the main content of the paper and points out that the research on Outcry and Hesitation from the perspective of space narration is not to draw any innovative conclusion, but to give some reasonable explanations to our reading intuition.