The First Person Narrative: The Epistolary And Non Epistolary

This thesis, in view of narrative structures, compares and contrasts the epistolary novel and the first-person non-epistolary novel. The thesis contains three chaptersThe first chapter generally introduces the two kinds of first-person narrative forms: the epistolary novel and non-epistolary novel, and emphasizes on their similarities. These similarities serve as the basis of the differences existing between the two kinds of first-person narrative forms.The second chapter elaborates on the three different relations of narrative layers existing during the narration of the first-person non-epistolary novel. The three kinds of relation are as follows: first, embedded relation of narrative layers; second, juxtaposed relation of narrative layers; third, both embedded and juxtaposed relation of narrative layers. The above three kinds of.relation prove the complexity of the inner structure of the first-person non-epistolary novel. The second half of this chapter discusses the inner structure of the epistolary novel, which, confined by letter-narration-the defining characteristics of the epistolary novel, owns as many extradiegetic levels as the number of the letters an epistolary novel holds.The third chapter analyses the logical relation of the narrative layers of both the epistolary novel and the first-person non-epistolary novel. There are three kinds of logical relation functioning: first, explaining relation; second, thematic relation; third, narration-for-narration's-sake relation.Based on the above analysis, this thesis tries to figure out advantages anddisadvantages of both the epistolary novel and the first-person non-epistolary novel, so as to reach a better understanding of the two narrative forms.