A Reading Of Cranford From The Perspective Of Feminist Narratology

With the development of narratological study, the critics come to realize the important role of the historical and social matters beyond the text. Feminist narratology is an interdisciplinary approach which combines the investigation of narrative form with historical, social and ideological contexts of fiction. It enriches both feminism and narratology. On the one hand, it overcomes the limitation that narratology especially advocates the narrative form, which is incapable of producing politically meaningful distinctions. On the other hand, it overcomes the political and subjective study of feminism and provides an objective study that is textually meaningful in exploring the historical and social matters.Deemed as the most creative novel of Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford has attracted more and more attention from critics in recent years. The fascination of this novel is believed to lie mainly in the complexity of its heroines' temperaments, which are studied continually by critics in feministic and realistic perspectives. The novel Cranford represents the life of unmarried women in a small town, and exhibits the development of the town. This thesis attempts to interpret Cranford from the perspective of feminist narratology to probe and analyze Elizabeth Gaskell's feminist consciousness which is embodied in the novel. This thesis consists of three chapters. The First Chapter discusses the narrative voice of Mary Smith. Through the voice of Mary, the narrative authority is invested in the definable community of heroines in the town of Cranford. The Second Chapter is the analysis of Elizabeth Gaskell's feminist consciousness from her peculiar narrative strategies: her handling with the narrative distance and her interventions in Cranford. As a middle-class woman, Elizabeth Gaskell can not escape her historical and social identity embodied in her way of narration. Gaskell concerns the women's questions deeply, and yet she takes her own peculiar measures which are not radical to solve women's questions. And her social identity and gender are located in her narrative strategies. The Third Chapter is the analysis of the complexity of the narrative structure and the development of the protagonist in the narrative maze. According to feminist narratology, there is an ideological implication in the narrative form. So it is possible to probe Elizabeth Gaskell's feminist consciousness in her narrative structure. Besides, from the study it is known that in this premeditated organization, the protagonist—Miss Matty is a rising individual, which implies the writer's underlying subversion of Victorian patriarchal society. The conclusion of the thesis exposes that the substance of Cranford is Elizabeth Gaskell's intentionally planned narrative subversion of tradition and exhibition of her own peculiar and mild feminist consciousness. As the favorite novel of Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford is a world where Gaskell experiments with her power of language, and through this novel Gaskell establishes her own narrative authority.