A Study Of The Narrative Discourse In Faulkner's Fiction

This dissertation summarizes the general features of the narrative discourse in Faulkner's fiction and explores Faulkner's unique view on space and time by carefully reading his major works, and analyzing the multi-perspective narrative model, the external narrators, the character narratives, and the irrational narration in Faulkner's narrative structure from a narratological perspective. The dissertation aims to reveal both the aesthetic value and the social value of Faulkner's fiction by combining the study of Faulkner's narrative form and the study of the relationship between Faulkner's fiction and the American Southern history.The dissertation consists of six parts. The first part is the introduction. It begins with a general description of some important arguments and terms of contemporary narrative theories, especially of Genette's and Shendan's. Then on the basis of an overall evaluation of both domestic and overseas research on Faulkner, the dissertation concisely explains the perspective, the originality and the significance of this research.The first chapter is entitled"Multi-perspective Narrative Model". It uses the theories, especially Genette's and Shendan's, associated with narrative perspective for reference to give a comprehensive exploration of the shifting and interfusing of multiple perspectives, the voice of narrators, and the narrative time and rhythm as well. Narrative perspective is not only the focus of contemporary narrative theories but also a major factor which determines narrative features. Different narrative perspectives will, to a great extent, change the expression form of fiction. Furthermore, the more characters, the more frequent shifts of perspectives, the richer its form and meaning will be. In Faulkner's multi-perspective narrative model, such techniques as the shifting and interfusing of multiple perspectives, the symphony of different voices, the disruption of chronological sequence, and the adjustment of narrative rhythm, not only change the narrative structure of traditional novels, but also endow novels with rich symbolic meanings.The second chapter is entitled"External Narrator in Narrative Structure". It presents an analysis of the function of external narrators, three kinds of their narration and the interfusion of the three kinds. In Faulkner's fiction, external narrator is a crucial narrative component. The collaboration of character narrators and external narrators in narration characterizes Faulkner's fiction, which interfuses experimental and traditional structural form of novels. In The Sound and the Fury the direct and objective narrative by the external narrator in the fourth section remedies the deficiency caused by the subjectivity of character narratives, and thus equilibrizes the holistic narrative structure. This chapter also explores the three kinds of narration made by external narrators, and the interfusion of the three kinds in Faulkner's fiction.The third chapter, entitled"Directed Character Narrative", begins with a discussion on the features of directed character narratives in Faulkner's fiction. Directed character narrative is not only an important means of telling stories, but also a significant means of portraying characters and clarifying meanings. In the novel Absalom, Absalom!, the artistry of the novel is, to a great degree, determined by the unreality of directed character narratives which involve the teller-hearer relationship. This chapter also probes into the reliability of directed character narratives, and a special form of telling a story Faulkner uses in the novel—character narrative chain.The fourth chapter analyzes the three different writing types of irrational narration in Faulkner's fiction. In most of his novels, especially in The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, Faulkner frequently uses stream-of-consciousness techniques. He chooses to have such characters with amentia or mental disorder as Benjy, Vardaman, Quentin and Darl act as narrators. By means of irrational narration of such writing types as are characteristic of children's utterance, balderdash, and bedlamite-prophet's talk, Faulkner reveals the disordered mental world of the characters in despair, and exposes the rationality's suppression of the irrationality, and man's dissimilation in the process of capitalistic industrialization. The last part is the conclusion. It first summarizes the development of Faulkner's unique view on space and time and its embodiment in Faulkner's narrative discourse. Most important of all, it illuminates the organic relationship between narrative form and thematic meanings in Faulkner's fiction. Faulkner's bold experiment and reform on the form of fiction not only creates the narrative artistry of Faulkner's novels, but also embodies his unique space-time view. Faulkner subtly combines the modernistic writing techniques and realistic materials so as to achieve the perfect unity of fiction's form and content.