A Study Of Bingxin's Novels From The Perspective Of Narratology

The previous domestic researches concerning the novels of Bingxin focused mainly on the content. Comparatively speaking, the literature critics seldom attached importance to the"form revolution"that Bingxin's novels conveyed. In other words, a further and detailed study requires to be conducted with regard to the unique narrative skill and pattern of Bingxin's novels. Therefore, the present thesis attempts to make a detailed text analysis of Bingxin's novels from the narratology perspective with the purpose to further demonstrate the aesthetic pattern , to further reveal the practical meaning and to further stress Bingxin's unique existence in Chinese contemporary literature history.The first chapter which makes an analysis on the strategies of Bingxin's narration aims to establish the necessary links between Bingxin's novels and narratology method, based on which, the artistic features of the research objects are also under the discussion. First of all, the paper probes into the imago narrative strategies with Bingxin's unique understanding of life and points out that the use of traditional imago strengthens the poetic and aesthetic degree of Bingxin's narrative works. The repeatedly used fable imago related to Christian culture serving as philosophy bears the feature of stressing and symbolization carried by the narrative story.. adds to the atmosphere of the novel .Therefore, new cultural elements emerge in terms of narrative imago, which has changed the traditional imago pattern of the Chinese novels and exerts a lasting influence on the"passion"of the content, the"taste"of the style and the"beauty"of the form. Second, the paper discusses that Binxin's novels simplified the story plots but deepened the meaning by using the essay-like narrative style. The novel was arranged via the emotional development of one certain character while the plots of the story scatter along this development in the form of emotion-expression,description and argumentum. The structure of her novels bears the feature both in a short-lettered form and the life-segmented style make her novels more like essays with regard to the structure and function.; therefore,"an emotion line"rather than"a plot line"becomes the main structure of the novel.Finally, the first chapter points out that since the novels reflect the author's real life and personality , the author,narrator and the character in the novel overlap and intercross with one another, which contains the code to the soul of the narrative novels and makes it possible and easier for the readers to fully comprehend what the the author means. Among all the novelists famous during the May 4th Movement period, Bingxin's novels, due to their unique narrative style, embodies profound cultural spirit and practical meaning.The second chapter serves as the main body of this thesis which discusses the narrative pattern of the Bingxin's novels. The first part points out the psychological-based structure and poetic-oriented style of Bingxin's novels make a distinct comparison against the traditional plot-oriented novels and demonstrating a unique characteristic. Meanwhile, the paper also points out that too much attention on"intention"and"style"in Bingxin's novels weakened the artistic charm of the novels, therefore, her novels lack the connatural style feature and go to another extreme to some degree.The second part analyses the features of how Bingxin the managed the narrative time in her novels from the perspective of frequency distortion ( repetition) and time sequence distortion( flashback,preview) and points out that Binxin tends to express the psychological time subjectively, therefore Bingxin follows but surpasses the traditional narrative time.The third part, by using the Chen Yuanping's novel perspective theory, makes an analysis of the use of all-known narration in the earlier novels and later the restricted narration and impersonal narration. The paper based on related narratology theories, makes a detailed study of the narrative structure, narrative time and narrative perspective of Bingxin's novels and at the same time it discusses the creation and insufficiencies in these three aspects and the uniqueness in these three aspects are also regarded as the creative and comprehensive theoretical part of this thesis that has been systematically studied by the previous researchers. The third chapter makes a study into the causes of the change in narrative pattern of Bingxin's novels and points out the main reasons are as follows: First, influenced by Christian culture, Bingxin tended to narrate the story in her own tone which added to the narrative element of the novels and affect the discourse form of the novels as well. Second, due to the impact of Chinese traditional culture, Bingxin applied poems and essay into her novels which made her novels more poetic. Third, the"entading"trend of the literature field helped Bingxin's novels more psychology-oriented, emotion-oriented and simple-plot -oriented.The narrative characteristics of Bingxin's novels demonstrated that as one of the pioneering authors of the May 4th literature, her novels not only merit in the initiative of the"problem novel"but also weighed heavily in the deploitation on the narrative art although inevitably it held some deficiencies to some degree.