The Production Of Meaning-A Critical Study Of Narrative Ethics In Joyce Carol Oates’s New Century Fiction

Joyce Carol Oates has always demonstrated great enthusiasm in exploring narrative function.She is a fragile woman writer but possesses a very profound sense of social responsibility.Since the beginning of her creating career,Oates has actively sought possible solutions to the issues in the development of society,particularly to the modern people’s psychological plight,ethical and survival dilemmas through her creative writings.In other words,she is never satisfied with the aesthetic meaning or artistic achievements of her works,but has endeavored to enhance the social function of the works to reach the moral height of the aesthetic implication.In the 21 st century,though passed sixtieth,Oates hasn’t stopped thinking about the social function of her works,moving into the specific practice area of ethic narrative.That is,Oates hasn’t satisfied with showing the real difficulties,or thinking about these difficulties inwardly,but has proposed further solution,which is the narrative ethical approach unfolded in her new century works and then developed into a clear narrative framework and the common ethical goals.To some extent,this new approach indicates the maturity of Oates’s creative writings in the new century.From presenting Human predicament to adopting the psychological methods and to obtaining the new narrative approach,Oates has delineated the obvious trajectory of exploring the method of the meaning production,which has left an indelible mark on her career as an innovative writer.Narrative ethics shows multiple representing methods in Oates’s novels,including not only a variety of characters’ narrative construction processes of self-narrative,other-narrative and social narrative but also the meaning-generating process of the characters’ interpretation and reorganization of the external and the internal world.In so doing,the characters are able to obtain personal identity,the ethical communication and existence transcendence by the way of narrative.Concretely speaking,the characters’ self-narrative is an important source of self-identity,that means a close relationship between the constructive nature of memory narrative,diversity of narrative sources,narrative identity and possible personal identity.The generation of characters’ other-narrative has the important meaning in changing their ethical views and solving their own ethical dilemmas,as well as conducting ethical communication.Dialectical relationship between the individual narrative and social narrative reflects the possibility of rewriting cultural narrative,that is to fulfill the object of the racial equality,cross-border survival and social justice by way of their individual narratives.As a keen observer of real society,Oates realizes the use of ethical function and strength of narrative in the social life,and then takes efforts in weaving the distributed narrative possibilities into each of her novels.By employing this method,Oates thus establishes a unique narrative ethics approach to achieve the goal of identity,ethical communication and social survival.The French philosopher Paul Ricoeur creatively establishes the ethical narrative relationship of ethics,narrative and the subject,stressing the continuity of the three elements of ethical concept-personal,interpersonal and community.His theory provides me with a theoretical basis and framework,as well as the organic link between the narrative and ethical purpose in my study of narrative ethics in Oates’s recent novels.At the same time,this dissertation attempts to provide the theoretical basis for the analysis of characters’ detailed description in Oates’s novels.By conducting the postclassical narrative research,especially by using the theory of narrative ethics,the author wants to explain the functional capabilities of the narrative context in meaning production.In conclusion,this study combines narrative,philosophy,ethics research together under the framework of narrative ethics theory,so as to present new understanding of narrative ethics of the characters in Oates’s new century fiction,offering new direction for the development of narrative ethics.Specifically by taking advantage of Ricoeur’s Philosophical Research of narrative ethics,this dissertation starts from the identity of self-narrative,and then the ethical interactive latitude of other-narrative,and finally back to the heritage and transcendence of the social narrative,so as to reveal the deeper meaning of characters’narrative ethics in Oates’s novels.The first chapter studies the ethical process of the self-identity from characters’self-narrative.Self-narrative primarily relates with memory narrative of self-concept,the narrativity of memory increases the uncertainty of self-concept.On the one hand,self-concept comes from the construction of memory narrative,on the other hand,self-concept shapes the content of memory narrative.In the novel My sister,My love,Oates presents that memory narrative,especially the reorganization of traumatic memory narrative,offers possible conclusive evidence for the generation of self-concept,and then clear self-concept will become internal basis of self-identity.In addition,self-narrative has diverse narrative source as it might be impelled by not only the willing narrative but also the unwilling narrative,constituting the basic elements of self-narrative.The stress on the initiative of self-narrative and narrative behavior in Oates’s novel I’ll Take You There,and the subject’s attempt of different narrative,shows that various possibilities of self-narrative represent the possibilities of the subject’s identity.At the same time,self-narrative also needs to deal with the interval between sameness and selfhood.Because the internal self is not a single level,but a mutually interwoven unity of plural aspects,including the selfhood content and the sameness content,in other words,the narrative identity perfectly solves contradictions and conflicts of sameness and selfhood.The novel Mudwoman fully demonstrated the consistency between the realization of narrative identity and the achievement of ethical goals of personal identity.Thus,Oates’s self-narrative is not only a refutation of egocentrism,but also contrary evidence of the extrinsic theory of the constructed identity.This theory of self-narrative makes the self as a changeable,malleable and dynamic subject,which has various possibilities of constructing and reorganizing of self-identity,so as to achieve ethical goals of the certainty of self-concept,the initiative of self-narrative,personal identity.From the perspective of other-narrative,the second chapter studies the ethical communication function of narrative between the self and the other.Narrative is an expression of human existence and communication.Narrative process is actually the process of establishing a relationship,mainly related to the ethical relationship.The ethical relationship between self and the other is not only a premise of narrative construction,but also a qualification and results of narrative construction.According to Ricoeur’s theory of "oneself as another",other-narrative is a possible way in realizing the ethical interaction of the self and the other.In Oates’s novels,the presentation of the other is absent,multifaceted,and heterogeneous,which determines the characteristics of other-narrative as generative,diversity and duplicity.Specifically,in the novel Missing Mom,the process of daughter’s other-narration of mother reflects ethical value of other-narrative for the narrator,including the content of other-narrative and the generating process of other-narrative,which both have the ethical meaning of making the daughter Nikki change her ethical awareness of mother,and begin a new ethical life.In the novel Middle Age,the multi-faceted Adam Bertrand’s sudden departure makes everyone,in the community which was filled with the middle-aged atmosphere,begin to build their own narrative of Adam from their own perspective.Although different people construct a different narrative of Adam,they both discover that Adam represents ethical latitude of love,goodness and beauty.More importantly,they get ethical self-revelation of life from Adam’s narration,and this ethical revelation is infinitely passed down in the form of narrative.In Oates’s novel The Tattooed Girl,Jewish writer Siegel and his female assistant Alma gradually changes each other’s ethical world,in their interwoven narrative world,that is,their mutual narrative changes from misunderstanding and hostility to love and attachment with each other.Thus,Oates emphasizes how the subject through the construction and transformation of other-narrative to achieve the inheriting,infinitive and interactive process of meaning production.From the perspective of social narrative,the third Chapter studies the dialectical relationship between the individual narrative and social narrative.Social narrative constitutes the social context of individual survival,often in the form of public ideology,nation culture and power discourse.However,in Oates’s novels,individual social narrative is an important ethical approach to rebel the social power narrative.In other words,narrative is both the tool of the power,and the best rebelling way of the weak.In Oates’s novel Black Girl,White Girl,black girl’s individual narrative becomes a narrative method against racism,which offers the possibility for the rewriting of the racist narrative.Ethnic cultural narrative is not only the best way to national cohesion and integration,but also the biggest factor of different peoples’estrangement.Oates presents the contradictions of double cultural narrative of American Jewish immigrants in her novel The Gravedigger’s Daughter,proposed narrative ethical issues hidden behind the cross-border survival.Finally,Oates presents the society is a blend of the various authoritative narrative in The Falls,and the individual has to take various forms of individual narrative to rebel against the shackle of authoritative narrative,for the purpose of social Justice and individual existence.Oates juxtaposed individual narrative and authoritative narrative,pointed out not only the ethical value of the individual narrative against the authoritative narrative,also the transcending-time significance of the ethical heritage.Narrative ethics research further demystifies the creation of Oates’s novels,both exhibiting multiple ethical worlds of meaning production,and discovering Oates’s narrative methods to resolve ethical dilemmas of modern people,that is,the identity construction of self-narrative,the ethical interaction of other-narrative,the transcendence survival of social narrative.The dissertation thus further summarizes that Oates expresses her serious reflections on human survival,human nature and the human search for ethical meaning by way of characters’ narrative,which let us see the craft and the originality of Oates as an innovative novelist.In a word,this dissertation studies Oates’s new century fictions from the perspective of narrative ethics,so as to discover how Oates vividly writes about the modern people’s production of meaning by the new narrative method.