Narrative Analysis On Robert Louis Stevenson's Major Novels

As an outstanding Scottish-English novelist, poet and essayist at the end of the 19th century, Robert Louis Stevenson played a key role in the history of the English literary with his adventurous theme and consummate narrative methods in his fiction. For a deeper cognition to Stevenson's literary works, the thesis intends to discuss Stevenson's narrative art by analyzing his three masterpieces based on classic narrative theory.This thesis chiefly contains three parts: introductory part, the main body, and the conclusion part. The introductory part relates briefly about Stevenson's life experience, current Stevenson study both at home and abroad, and the aim of this thesis. The main body includes three chapters, each discussing one book. Every chapter is composed of two sections, from microcosmic and macrocosmic perspectives in Classic Narratology separately. Section one is to investigate features of his narrative discourse with the theory of narrative focalizer and the shifting of narrator, whereas section two intends to analyze the characteristic of his narrative structure with the narrative mode theory. The compound internal focalizer with parallel narrative in Treasure Island , complex internal focalizer with multi-level narrative in The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde , and simple internal focalizer with narrative embedding in Kidnapped,not only represent the revolution and maturation of the author's narrative techniques, but also contribute significantly to his works'vivid contents and profound themes. The conclusion summarizes the literary achievements Stevenson made in narrative art.