Narrative Aesthetics In Raymond Carver’s Short Stories

Raymond Carver(1938-1988)is important in contemporary American literature for his achievements in short stories.His short stories are widely regarded as breaking away from the fictional experimentation of postmodernism and replacing it with neo-realist style of narratives in the 1970s and 1980s,thus they represent the revival of interest in short story as a genre in that period."Minimalism," with its idea of "less is more",is felt to be inadequate to explain the long-lasting interest in Carver’s narrative aesthetics and his wide influence in world literature.Meanwhile,a review of literature of Carver studies so far indicates a lack of systematic study of Carver’s narrative aesthetics from the perspective of the dynamic relationship between readerly response and authorial intention,and Carver’s short stories have not been examined under a paradigm to explore the inherent connection between his narrative aesthetics and valid interpretation of these stories.Thus,it is hoped that the limitation of"impressionistic interpretation" or "extrinsic criticism" in existing Carver studies,in terms of explanation and interpretation of textual details,could be overcome by the study of the narrative aesthetics in Carver’s short stories.With the theoretical perspective of James Phelan’s rhetorical narrative theory in this study,Carver’s narrative aesthetics could be better surveyed in terms of the intrinsic operating mechanism of the reader’s experiencing of the narrative.For one thing,Phelan associates textual dynamics,authorial agency and reader response as feedback loop in narrative progression,so that the study of narrative aesthetics and narrative judgments could be dynamic and progression-based;for another thing,his idea of aesthetic judgments both as independent from and as consequence of interpretive judgments and ethical judgments could ensure a narrative aesthetic study of Carver’s stories in which every detail in the text could be observed and taken into consideration in the a posteriori principle.In general,Phelan’s insight of narrative techniques,narrative progression and the commonality of modern short stories could ensure a study of Carver’s narrative aesthetics that is based on the interpretation of textual details.This study chooses thirty-one short stories from Raymond Carver:Collected Stories for a systematic survey of Carver’s narrative aesthetics.It is intended not only to discover the narrative theoretical cause of aesthetic pleasure in experiencing Carver’s short stories,but also to carry out in-depth interpretation of individual pieces to set an example for a new method for the study of the art of short stories in general.The study is carried out in the theoretical perspective of narrative aesthetics that is established in the "Introduction",which follows an argument logic of "narrative techniques and aesthetic judgments—the nature of progression and aesthetic judgments—synthetic foregrounding and aesthetic judgments".First,it is discovered that different levels of "repetitions" as narrative technique are frequently seen in Carver’s stories,from which first-order aesthetic judgment and second-order aesthetic judgment could be made as to the positive aesthetic judgments of Carver’s narrative works.Then,a discussion of the progression’s nature is associated with aesthetic judgments based on other techniques involved in chosen pieces,and a conclusion could be made on the relationship between weak narrativity(strong lyricality and portraiture)and positive aesthetic judgments in Carver’s short story narratives.Lastly,the study explores the authorial control of potential aesthetic judgments,that is,the implied author’s foregrounding of the synthetic components of readerly interest(synthetic foregrounding).It categorizes such synthetic foregrounding,which is sometimes covert and in other times overt,and in still some other cases ambivalently blurred with the other two components of readerly interest.This dissertation sets itself on the narrative aesthetic perspective,and evolves around the key concepts of rhetorical narrative theory,like "progression","judgments","implied author","authorial audience",and the "a posteriori principle",which are organically unified under the basic assumption of rhetorical narrative theory,in order that the complexity,subtlety,integrity,and unity of the reading experience and aesthetic world brought about by Carver’s narrative art could be thoroughly understood and proved.Chapter One begins with aesthetic judgments,based on the discussion of verbal repetition,sentence repetition,and narratological repetition in Carver’s stories as narrative techniques.It explores the effect of these repetitions on the reader response,and provides basis for the positive aesthetic judgments of Carver’s stories.Thus,repetition becomes the first part of Carver’s narrative aesthetics.Chapter Two explores the relationship between aesthetic judgments and the nature of progression,discovering that Carver’s stories are characterized by the commonality of weak narrativity and strong lyricality or portraiture,which becomes the second part of Carver’s narrative aesthetics.This feature demonstrates that Carver’s narrative art is closer to poetry and further from narrative fiction.Chapter Three develops out of the reasoning between positive aesthetic judgments and the authorial foregrounding of the synthetic components of readerly interest in Carver’s stories.It points out that covert,overt synthetic foregrounding,or the ambivalent synthetic foregrounding formulates the third part of Carver’s narrative aesthetics.Thereby,the whole study answers in a consecutive manner of the three core questions concerning Carver’s narrative aesthetics:"Is it aesthetically satisfying in terms of authorial audience’s experience?""What’s the specificity of this narrative art from traditional narrative art?" "Why is it aesthetically successful from the point of view of the artful design of the author?" So the three chapters also follow the logical reasoning of rhetorical narrative theory from the tripartite angle:judgments on textual dynamics,description of reader response,and the display of authorial agency.The three parts coalesce into the whole under the theoretical principle of feedback loop in Phelan’s rhetorical narrative theory.In conclusion,multiple repetitions,weak narrativity(strong lyricality or portraiture),and synthetic foregrounding formulate the content of Carver’s narrative aesthetics.The three are unified in the complexity,integrity and feedback loop along the narrative progression of Carver’s stories,protruding the complex and imaginative world of Carver’s narrative art.The conclusion thus explains the narrative theoretical cause behind Carver’s narrative art and paves way for narrative aesthetic study of short story as a genre and fictional art in general.