The Analysis Of Narrative Technique In Herzog

In 1964, the publication of Herzog marked the confirmation of Bellow's status as "major" American novelist. In this work Bellow explored the situation of the intellectual in American society. The theme is significant and presented with intensity. Bellow's remarkable achievement in Herzog lies in narrative technique.According to Gerald Prince, narrative is the representation of at least two real or fictive events and situations in a time sequence. The goals of narratology are clear: to discover, describe and explain the mechanics of narrative, the elements responsible for its form and functioning. With the employment of narratology, the paper explores the actual functioning of narrative technique in Herzog as it contributes to understanding the novel's theme and character.First, in narrative time, Bellow compresses the lifetime of his protagonist into five days, which is arranged in chronological order and extended in psychological time. Bellow's use of anachrony especially flashback within flashback increases the amount of information of psychological time, and reflects profound psychological levels and depth. Thus psychological time becomes the main temporal narrative structure that breaks the conventional way of chronological organization, enriches temporal concept of fictional narration and embodies the characteristics of consciousness itself that is free and not restrained by objective time. From the analysis of narrative order and duration, we may feel the strong sense of rhythm.Secondly, in narrative space, Bellow provides a vivid objective space from regional environment to social cultural context. In the meantime, tracing the psychological time, psychological space exposes to us a modernist world that is stereoscopic and three-dimensional, with a strong sense of space. It is through monologues especially Herzog's unsent mental letters that such space is rich in profound thoughts, depicting modernist condition of existence and the protagonist's inner feelings of outer world, reflecting the crisis of bourgeois humanism.Thirdly, in narrative point of view, Bellow's use of strategic shifts in person and internal focalization embodies well the situation of the protagonist, and makes uslearn more about Herzog's inner and outer world especially his confusion of reality.Finally, the employment of web narrative structure reflects modernist time and space. Bellow combines personal life with social public life to reveal social reality and individual's fate. We can feel that the coherence of Herzog is an internal, invisible one, that of a whole world held together in a precarious state of dynamic equilibrium.In a word, Herzog belongs to a modernist fiction with characteristics of temporal anachrony and temporal space as main body. Narrative analysis to Herzog has practical value, which contributes to thorough comprehension of its theme. At present, narratology has been more and more valued and gradually applied to analyze modernist fictions, thus becomes an important critical theory of contemporary literature.