Rage Of Angels: A Narrative Study

As a famous talented contemporary popular writer in the United States, Sidney Sheldon created more than 250 TV shows, over 30 scripts and 6 musicals in his life, and got the highest honor of Tony, Oscar and Emmy awards in music, film and television arena. Almost each of his novels boarded the bestseller lists soon after the publishing. All his novels have been translated and published in China, most of which were rather familiar to Chinese readers. Rage of Angels, the first book translated and published in China, was acclaimed by the New York Times as the top of the bestseller of the month. The success of the novel is attributed not only to its unique narrative skills and strategies, but also to its revelation of the aspiration for humanity and the pursuit of love and dream. The novel is remarked to have done its bit, which renders Sheldon's novel to exhibit fantastic narrative style and aesthetic features. Taking narratology and post-narratology theories, the paper conducts an analysis of the novel from the following aspects:Introduction gives a brief account of Sheldon's life and the literary review of his novels, on the basis of which the need and significance of the study for the novel is explained with the aid of theories of narratology and post-narratology. Afterwards, the influence of Rage of Angels is related to further deliberate the significance of its narrative style study. Chapter One starts from the specific content of the novel to discuss and analyze its plot mode, suspense arrangement and thrilling scenes within the traditional narrative frame, so as to point out the uniqueness of the narrative structure via examples in the novel.Chapter Two elaborates the narrative skills of the novel based on the theory of narratology. It's held that the novel inherits but is not limited to the tradition, it attempts multi-angle writing technique to promote the story aside from the traditional employment of single-angle writing. In addition, filmic technique is properly used to add to the charm as well as the complexity of the plot, further enhancing the revelation of the theme.Chapter Three deals with the appropriate narrative strategies of the novel. Various narrative rhetoric well manipulates the narrative rhythm of the novel, and with the use of expressive patterns of the characters, the textual meaning and theme of the novel is clearly delivered.Chapter Four summarizes the narrative means of the novel and explores its textual meaning and the theme, that is, the aspiration for humanity and the pursuit of love and dream.Conclusion gives a comprehensive comment on the whole thesis, and point out the significance of the employment of narratology and narratologies in the analysis of the novel.