The Analysis Of The Multiple Themes And Narrative Strategy Of The Monk

Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818) is one of the representative of British Gothic writers. When he was 19 years old, he wrote the famous masterpiece The Monk (1796), which caused more than a ripple of astonishment at that time. During a long period, this book had been criticized as"plagiarism","immorality"and"blasphemous". All of the criticism against The Monk resulted in the book's being copied, reprinted, and of course, read. As a classic novel, The Monk evidently contains variety of Gothic features, not only in the characterization, but aslo in the plot setting and the psychological description. By inheriting the traditions of former Gothic novels, The Monk conducts meaningful research in adding new literary elements in this field. As other classic works, the theme of The Monk includes many aspects, the rich connotation brings us to constantly explore the possibility. It is the multiple themes which creates the work's artistic quality. The author trys to analyze the multiple themes and the relative narrative strategy based on textual studies and the close reading of The Monk.This essay is divided into three parts: the introduction, the body and the conclusion. The body of the essay consists of three chapters.The first chapter starts from reviewing Lewis'life and the process of wrting The Monk. Introducing the various verions and trying to comparatively analyze those verions in the theory of translation studies. From this way, can easily find the domestic situation of literary translation and reception.The second chapter analyzes the richness of the theme meaning from four aspects: death; good and evil; the female sex; and the apparition."Death"is one of the universal literary themes. The plots about"death"of the characters in The Monk are eerie, murky scene of dread with specific narration tactics to achieve the effect of terror. This part also studies the meaning and function of"death"theme in literature."Good and Evil"in The Monk is not only for the binary opposition between the different types of characters, but also the coexistence of good and evil in the hero Ambrosio. In this sense, the story of The Monk shows that religious laws and regulations distort human nature. Discussing the creation of the ghost images in The Monk and other Gothic novels from the aesthetic point of view, and trying to interpret The Monk in the view of Feminism and feminist narratology in order to set forth the limitations of The Monk in the relative historical context.The third chapter analyzes the narrative perspective and the time table of The Monk and attempts to analyze the text in the use the Greimas' Structural Semantics analysis. The analysis focuses on the hero Ambrosio and reveal their inner meaning of existentialism.