A Study Of The Implied Author In The Novels Of American Naturalism

The concept of the implied author has been widely used in the narratology, on which base this thesis will make full use of some narrative theories such as unreliable narration, mind style, shifting points of view and also some stylistic theories such as multiple symbolic meanings, "cover-up operation", to have an analysis of Sister Carrie and Martin Eden, the two typical works in the Naturalism novels. "Implied Author" is presented by Wayne C. Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction published in 1961, which has exerted great influence on the academic circle of international narratology. The paper aims at analyzing the relations among the implied author and the real author, the narrator and the reader, on which ground I will have an in-depth analysis of text versions to help the readers have a better understanding of practical applicability of the implied author theory and grasp the essence of works in full scale from the narrative perspectives.First of all, much attention will be paid to the research background of the implied author and also its different trends of variations will be explored to seize the relations among the author, the narrator and the reader. Secondly, this thesis keeps trying to reveal the literature characteristic of two novels by means of excavating the techniques in the novels to make readers have a deep understanding of the implied author. Finally, the concluding part may be helpful for those who want to have a further research of narrative elements by blending the new narrative strategy in the text analysis.