Narratological Study On "Mask Movies" In The Western Countries

Narratology is a young discipline, which was generated in France where the structuralism was very popular in 1960s. It became an international literary critique trend soon after its generation. Having experienced the"classical period", narrative theory has stepped into the"postclassical phase". Many new theories have generated in the late 20th century, among which Reading Narrative (1998) by J. Hillis Miller is a mile stone of post-classical narrative theory.As two different narrative theory systems, the classical and post-classical narrative theories provide me with powerful approaches to interpret the mask movies in the Western countries.As an unfading motif, mask has become an indispensable part of the Western civilization. Tracing thousands years back, masks were on the stages of Hellas; looking ahead, mask will accompany human beings forever, for it is a deep-planted collective unconsciousness. In its never-ending course of history, I could only intercept one minute period of time in which I live and grow, so that its ineluctable influence can be discussed.Western movies have used mask as the motif for many years, and their stories of mask are multi-dimensional. From the perspective of typology,"mask movie"has no doubt become one type in Western movies, which enjoys its share in the colorful world of films. Mask is a symbol of deities, as well as totems of distorted humanity, emerging in front of us with dual identities and personalities. Mask can at the same time become the embodiment of wickedness, amicability, gorgeousness and commonness. I have always marveled at the multi-dimensional meaning for which mask could stand. Why mask movies share such an important part in Western movies and appeal to such a large audience? Why it has an immortal artistic life? After teasing mask movies in the western countries, I analyze some characteristic ones from the perspective of narrative.Within the hermeneutic framework of classical narrative, the structure of mask movie present their integrity and uniqueness, while within the frame work of postclassical narrative theory, the structure appears to be irregular, broken imbalanced and dual, which is just in the opposite of the former one. In this analysis, I clearly feel the continuity of classical and postclassical narrative theories. As is state in the title,"narrative"itself is Janus with double faces: when we scrutinize text without concerns of readers and historical context, the approach we involved is called classical narrative, otherwise it is postclassical one, which is described by J. Hillis. Miller as Hogarth's curve, Honore de Balzac's snake and Brownian motion.This thesis is made up of 5 parts:The first part is introduction, which gives brief introduction of"narratology"and its classification.Chapter 1 focuses on the narrative theories which support this thesis,including classical narrative theories of Northrop Frye, V. Propp and Tzvetan. Todorov, and postclassical narrative theories of J. Hillis. Miller.Chapter 2 traces the archetypal origin of mask and gives classification of mask movies in the Western countries according to typology.Chapter 3 focuses on the analysis of 4 most characteristic mask movies, which is carried out within the framework of classical and postclassical narrative theories respectively.The last part is conclusion, which summarizes previous discussion and draws a conclusion that the unique charm of mask movie lies in its narrative structure and the immortal artistic life lies in irregular and imbalance character of its narrative pattern.