The Unparalleled Art Of Narration

Being a young and developing subject, narratology is the theory and systematic study of narrative. In western narrative theories, a narrative work is usually divided into two corresponding levels, that is,"story"and"discourse"whose interaction contributes to the realization of the narrative work's profound meaning."Story"refers to the events abiding by the chronological order or causality, and"discourse"refers to the artistic treatment of these materials. Different from the"language"in stylistic field, the"narrative discourse"covers almost all the narrative skills employed by the author to tell a story, including point of view, narrative pattern, arrangement of time order, duration and frequency of events, mood, narrative voice, and so on. Closely connected with the effect the event ("story") exerts, these forms of"discourse"occupy an extremely crucial position in text-analysis. The Great Gatsby, which is commonly set as a model for modern art of novels, supplies us an enormous practical space to study and exercise the theory of narratology. This paper attempts to inquire into the narrative skills and pattern as well as the deep narrative structure of the classic, from the perspective of narrative discourse, in order to reveal Fitzgerald's unparalleled ingenuity in handling artistic techniques. Being crucial for the author to tell stories and the readers to acquire information, the point of view directly relates to the extent the story develops and the readers'response goes. The Great Gatsby adopts Nick as"first-person witness,"resulting in the two sides of narration, that is, directness and vividness but objectivity and rationalization, the latter being determined by Nick's personality. The discrepancy between the two constitutes exactly the text's tension. However, to those events Nick has not experienced, it is necessary for him to transfer from the center of the narration to the outside and resign his authority to the direct witness. As the first-person narrator, Nick also changes his perspective, sometimes on recollecting the past and sometimes on experiencing the events at that moment, and the latter giving birth to the striking effect. In addition, if it is significant to reveal the characters'inner activities, the narrator will be privileged to exceed his authority, penetrating into the characters'inner worlds and reporting. This is the so-called"transgression."Constructed by the main and secondary levels, the text contains various narrative voices, which speak for their respective independent consciousness, and thus, the dullness of mono-narration is avoided and a pluralistic pattern takes shape. The text is abundant of...