An Analysis Of Repetition In The Bridges Of Madison County

The Bridges of Madison County was published in 1992 by Robert James Waller, and is considered as the most profound and powerful novella of the century. Since its publication, people have taken a fancy to it for its plain love story, or the emphasis on responsibility of the marriage and the family. Simultaneously critics have never ceased to make comments upon it from various aspects, but none of them makes it from the perspective of the repetition theory by J.Hillis. Miller.The Bridges of Madison County mainly tells a story about the eternal love between Robert Kincaid and Francesca Johnson. One warm summer day, Robert Kincaid comes to an Iowa town to photograph its beautiful old bridges for National Geographic. There he meets Francesca, a farm wife, when he asks her the way to Roseman Bridge, then they attract and fall in love each other deeply and immediately. For four days, they revel in one another the beauty and the magic of love. When it is time for their departure, Francesca makes a painful decision to stay for the social responsibilities of the marriage and the family. From then on, Francesca yearns for Robert for over twenty years until her death, so does Robert. The story is simple, but its meaning is rich.J. Hillis. Miller is a famous contemporary American literary critic. In his Fiction and Repetition: Seven English Novels, Miller analyzes all sorts of repetitive phenomena, two forms of it and its function. Based on the repetition theory, this thesis aims to analyze the rich meanings and its incompatibility of The Bridges of Madison County, so the readers can be helped to enjoy it in depth. Chapter One focuses on the repetition within the text, namely the repetition of verbal, scenes, and the narrative structure. Chapter Two centers on the repetition outside the text. It repeats its author, other literary works and other styles. Chapter Three probes into the incompatible meaning of the text by the two forms of repetition. At last, the paper points out that the rich meanings can cause readers to ponder the nature of human being and the existing state of the modern people.