A Narrative Reading Of A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man

This dissertation makes a narrative reading of James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, trying to illustrate the phenomenon of the co-existence of the author's seeming withdrawal from the narration and his actual concern with the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus. This dissertation firstly analyzes, on the basis of Stanzel's narrative theories, the author's seeming withdrawal and the sense of distance in the novel from four aspects: person, perspective, mode and voice. It then testifies the author's actual concern with the protagonist from the creating process and the elaborate structure of the novel and the author's control of the reader's response, therefore proving that the sense of distance in the novel isn't resulted from the author's attitude towards his protagonist. It finally explains that the sense of distance is partly originated from the complicated emotion the author holds for his country--Ireland.