Rhetorical Narrative In Pnin

Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) is an outstanding Russian-born American writer, scholar and translator in the 20th-Century world literature. Among his numerous works, Lolita and Pale Fire have been regarded as world classics.Pnin is the third novel Nabokov wrote in English in America, and it is also the first work which has aroused widespread attention in American readers. Based on Foucault's discourse power theory and a rhetorical narrative approach, this thesis will first inquire into the narrative strategies and the rhetorical purpose in Pnin and then analyze the decisive factors for such application from a subjective and an objective perspective respectively.This thesis is divided into four chapters.ChapterⅡgives a brief introduction to the characteristics of narrative structure in Pnin and also the main characteristics of rhetorical narrative, that is, narration is regarded as an action for the author to convey knowledge, emotions, values and beliefs to the reader through narrative discourse. The third section in ChapterⅡexamines narrative discourse and the plot. Firstly, the story is dealt with at two levels: the narrator's story and that of the author's. Then, with an analysis of the different voices and connotations of the story, it is concluded that Pnin presents a great gap between inside and out. Inside the story, it is a Pnin's story narrated by the authoritative narrator; on the outside, the author denies the narrator's voice and tells a different story, a poor Pnin. This paper holds that these narrative strategies applied by Nabokov are not only related to the author's writing interests, but also influenced by social factors. ChapterⅢmainly gives an analysis of discourse background for the author's narrative strategies. First, through narrator selection the author devises a reader classification mechanism. On the one hand, he takes the American public as the"subject"—the main receivers. But the work is also the author's active appeal for the ideal reader. Second, the thesis discusses Russian expatriate writing and national cultural identity in Pnin. On the one hand, the author gives a"landscaping"treatment of Pnin in order to reach an agreement with the American's impression of the"Other". On the other hand, by twofold voice technique and unreliable narrative, the author managed to change Pnin story into a Russian national narrative. Finally, the paper points out that the stimulus for the narrative strategies in Pnin is Nabokov's active pursuit of discourse authority in America.