Receiving Research On Second Person Fiction

The employment of narrative pronouns in fiction has long been an important topic in western fiction narratological theories. With a focus on third person and first person narration, traditional narratological paradigms have a very limited discussion on second person narration. On one hand this is because of the limited number of second person fictions, on the other hand, the definition of second person fiction by structuralism also played a role. With more and more second person ficiton being published since 1980s, traditional narratological theories began to exhibit their limitation in explaining second person fiction. In this context, post classical narratologies, which advocate for an aesthetic analysis of the form of fiction and an analysis of the relationship between fiction and social history, have emgerged. This thesis, following the new trend of narratological methodology, attempts to provide a reception-based study of second person fiction.The first part will focus on the definition of second person fiction as is discussed in this thesis. Later, it argues that different reading experiences are offered by first, second or third person narration. In the end, new categorization of fictions based on this implication is provided.The second part discusses the interactive structure of narrating subject and receiving subject in second person fiction and brings out a unique consciousness of time behind this narrative interaction. The structure and consciousness constitute the "reader-involvingness" of second person fiction.The third part goes further to explore the cultural connotations of second person narration. The adoption of second person narration expresses the invitation for readers to be involved in the development of fiction. From this perspective, we can present the "intertextual" relationship between fiction and reader in reality, and furthermore, the intertextual relationship of contemporary art works and real life.