Voice And Self

This thesis carries out a feminist-narratological investigation of Margaret Atwood's novel The Blind Assassin. The novel has an intricate narrative structure with three narrative levels. The present study investigates the voices of the female lover and Iris the narrator respectively on the novel's innermost and primary narrative levels to help reveal how the narrative device of voice contributes to women's self-expression and subversive power. Susan Lanser's feminist-narratological study of"voice"forms an important framework for this thesis, and the concepts of Free Indirect Discourse and Free Direct Discourse also lend support to the present study. With the first introductory chapter paving the way, Chapter 2 will first explore the female lover's challenging voice in her protest of the male narrator's conventional portrayal of women as silent victims. In the second part of the chapter, the present study reveals that the female lover expresses her yearning for freedom and autonomy in a special form, which blends free direct thought and free indirect thought and takes on the advantages of both. Chapter 3 will carry out a detailed study of the narrator Iris's witty and incisive comments on conventional values and her manipulation of Richard's speech, which helps to reveal her as a self-empowering woman capable of skillfully subverting patriarchal and conventional authorities.