An Analysis Of Virginia Woolf's Narrative Techniques From Her Major Novels

As an outstanding modern novelist in the twentieth century, Virginia Woolf claims an incontrovertible place in the history of English literature. Along the endless road of human literature development, Virginia Woolf is by no means a passing traveler or an attitudinizer. She has proved her speciality both theoretically and practically through her plentiful and substantial accomplishment, which makes her an inevitable monument in modern literature study.The last century has witnessed a good-sized research on Virginia Woolf with increasingly diverse aspects. However, there are still ample spaces for further exploration on her works. Among them is the study on her narrative mode in novel, which is a significant and rarely-touched field. Maintaining that the study of Woolf from the aspect of narratology is far from enough and complete nowadays, and considering that the narrative techniques in her novels are essential to the study of Virginia Woolf, this thesis chooses them as an access to her. These narrative techniques not only serve as unique tools for Virginia Woolf to bring to light her conflicts with her age but also significantly mark her literary identity and establish her as one of the first-rate English writers.This thesis is intended to make some analysis of the major narrative techniques with the exemplification mainly from her three novels, The Mark on the Wall, Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, which are commonly recognized as her famous representative works. The analysis in this thesis is mainly based on narratology with some related terms adopted to interpret Woolf's unique narrative skills. The persistent efforts on the literary experiments and innovations demonstrate Virginia Woolf's unremitting pursuit of her unique narrative conception of molding the real man and picturing the real life in her novels. Just with such narrative conception in her mind, Woolf created many immortal classics that make the world literature richer and more colorful.This thesis consists of introduction, main body and conclusion. The introduction part shows the current situation about the study of Virginia Woolf as well as her works home and abroad. And also, the main concern and the major realistic significance of this thesis are revealed.The second part of this thesis is the main body which is divided into three chapters. Chapter one is the general introduction to narratology and Virginia Woolf's narrative conception, which gives us some general ideas of the theory basis of this thesis and makes us clear that it is Woolf's unique narrative conception that inspired and motivated her to devote herself to the persistent experiments and innovation of the narrative techniques in her novel writing. This chapter introduces the rise and spread of narratology with various definitions of narratology mentioned. And Virginia Woolf's narrative conception of molding the real man and reflecting the real life is outlined. Led by such unique narrative conception, Woolf successfully approached the"reality"that she had been pursing all the time in her writing.Chapter two elaborates Woolf's narrative techniques on narrative subjects, i.e. Woolf's characterization. By adopting Genette's narratology theories about focalization to explain Woolf's narrative techniques on characterization, the emphasis is put on the internal focalizaion which Woolf prefers to use in molding her characters. And also, in this chapter, the zero focalizaion and free indirect speech in narratology are adopted to illustrate that Woolf's novels show the narrative feature of covert narrator. At the beginning of this chapter, some related theories and knowledge about narrative subject are summarized. Then this chapter analyzes Woolf's characteristic narrative techniques on narrative subject from two facets. The first facet elaborates the establishment of the character-narrator in Woolf's novels which means letting characters"speak". Woolf abandoned the conventional creation mold in which the omniscient narrator is always attached great importance; instead she skillfully adopted the narrative technique of character-narrator narration. Such technique is called internal focalization in Genette's narratology theories. With the elaboration of the theories about focalization in narratology as well as the specific exemplifications, this facet emphasizes the variable internal focalization and multiple internal focalization, both of which are masterly utilized by Virginia Woolf. Locating the narrative focus on the mental activities of characters, Woolf made it possible to narrate through her characters. The second facet puts its emphasis on the feature of covert narrator reflected in Woolf's novels. Compared with the leading status of character-narrator, the omniscient narrator's power is extremely limited in Woolf's novels, revealing the feature of covert narrator. To achieve such narrative effect, two major narrative techniques are adopted, zero focalization and free indirect speech. As for the zero focalization, it is restricted intentionally by Woolf in her novels. Zero focalization is used as an assistant role to introduce the information or events outside the characters'inner world. Moreover, the zero focalization in Woolf's novels is just like a broken line, interluding among the internal focalization gleamingly. Besides, the free indirect speech is selected by Woolf as the leading narrative discourse to depict the characters'meditation. Thus the narrator's voice interweaves with the characters', properly creating the narrative effect of covert narrator.Chapter three dwells on Woolf's characteristic narrative techniques on narrative time. First Woolf's conception of time is introduced. Similar to Bergson, Woolf believed that time can be divided into two types: the physical time and the psychological time. Woolf attached importance to the psychological time rather than the physical time. In her creation, Woolf broke away from the mould of the single linear setting of time in traditional novels. Based on such conception of time, Woolf's narrative techniques on narrative time are analyzed mainly in three aspects: time sequence and time span, time and space as well as the moment of importance. In the aspect of time sequence and time span, this thesis first explains the related narratological theories about time sequence. With the specific exemplifications, we can find that Woolf's time sequence in her works is presented in an out-of-order way, which is just the manifestation of her respecting human beings'"inner reality". Then the narratological theories about time span is introduced. With proper illustrations, this thesis points out that the setting of time span in Woolf's novels is mainly achieved through its combination with characters'consciousness. Woolf attached great importance to the depiction of characters'mental activities rather than external events and inserted large amount of characters'consciousness into the simple external events, so that the capacity of text is greatly expanded. Woolf succeeded in melting the time in the space and bluring the boundaries of time and space, which endows her novels with a marvelous kind of"space sense". Woolf's treatment of time and space is chiefly reflected in her skillful utilization of time montage and space montage. Time montage is mainly used to present single character's flow of consciousness while the utilization of space montage is mainly reflected in a kind of macroscopical structural juxtaposition, namely the simultaneous narrative. Finally, this chapter illustrates the concept of"the moment of importance"created by Woolf, which can best show Woolf's unique narrative techniques on narrative time. It is the ingenious utilization of"the moment of importance"that makes Woolf successfully approached the characters'"inner reality"and reflected the real life in her novels.The last part of this paper is the conclusion part. Based on the above illustration and analysis in each chapter, this part serves as a further summarization of Virginia Woolf's unique narrative techniques reflected in her major novels. This thesis throws new light on the originality, uniqueness and ingenuity of the major narrative techniques Woolf adopts in her novels, and also, it analyzes Woolf's characteristic narrative techniques in her major novels on the basis of the related theories in narratology which is still on its way of development towards a bright future. The innovation of this thesis lies in its elaborate analysis of the major narrative elements in the texts of Woolf's novels. Thus gradually emerges the image of an immoral novelist who is both a proponent of avant-garde aesthetics and a master hand at technical innovation.