On Flash-forward In HongLouMeng And David Hawkes' Treatment

From the perspective of narratology, this thesis deals with David Hawkes' version of HongLouMeng. Ever since Genette, Mieke Bal and other figures founded narratology, it has witnessed great progress in the west and is gaining eye-catching development in China as well. Genette and others had made wonderful analyses before they made convincing conclusions. On the basis of time discrepancy, they turn narratolgy into two categories: flash-forward and flashback: if the story occurs before discourse, it is flashback; otherwise it will be flash-forward.Flash-forward is rich in its contents. Liu Xizai commented in Abstract of Arts that flash-forward provides story lines and thus helps the writer perform his/her crafts out of his/her will.Different from western classical novels, traditional Chinese novels are often full of flash-forward. In spite of the decrease of suspense about the story ending/result due to flash-forward, the development process of the story still stimulates readers' curiosity, which is related to the forms and characteristics of flash-forward in classical Chinese novels and deeply affected by folklore telling—talking of the main process and result to attract receivers'/readers' focus.This thesis studies David Hawkes' translation of HLM(The Story of the Stone) by means of documents and literature, classification and synthetic analysis from the perspective of flash-forward. In contemporary translation criticism on HLM, most critics carry out a comparison research on the two current reputed versions by Yang Xian-yi & Gladys Yang and David Hawkes (the first 80 chapters). Disputes around domestication and foreignization go on and on; Researches concerning David Hawkes' translation are mainly carried out from cultural gap or on his domesticatipn strategy with a bit of negative criticism.On the basis of respecting Hawkes' translation skills\arts, this thesis explores and tries to answer whether the translator had considered the narrative categories before he translated the novel, and tries to reckon the TLT readers' response compared with that of the SLT readers. In the meanwhile, this thesis points out that cultural gap can not be the only reason as to the scattered mistranslation.Flash-forward in HLM is a kind of narration of the ending in advance with a bit of fatalism.From the perspective of narratology, flash-forward is often more significant than flashback. Flshforward often echoes to the narrator, and all flash-forward can be regarded as interference of the narrator (ie. writer), which means any study or research concerning the treatment of flash-forward in HLM has to be based on the proper and sufficient analysis of the writer. Concerning the translation treatment of flash-forward in HLM, Zhen Min-yu has made some researches(郑敏宇, 2001,3),but it is not so comprehensive. This thesis is an attempt of one further step.This thesis consists of 5 chapters. Chapter 1 is the introduction about the necessity and basis of this thesis, flash-forward, the spread of HLM both at home and abroad and different views concerning the writer's motivation in such a creative work; Chapter 2 is around the relation between the translator and the author, points out the proper attitude of the translator in translating any profound classical works ,...