| Martin Amis, an eminent figure in contemporary British literature, is a prolific writer who does not write abundant of novels only, but also has produced a good deal of poetry, plays, literature criticisms and so on. His works always leave readers deep impression, thus Amis is known as one of the most widely acclaimed men of letters in contemporary Britain. Money:A Suicide Note, published in 1984, is one of Martin Amis's master works, which is thought highly of by literary field. By the method of close reading, the present thesis attempts to analyze the urban spatial narrative in the novel through three chapters in depth, and reveals its significance in motif representation, characters depiction and also artistic power.Chapter One endeavors to analyze topographical space in the novel by two aspects. It firstly describes New York and London, the dual locales of the novel, including their streets, avenues and so on in general. The thesis further unfolds the mottled urban visions like shopping malls and neon lights. Through both direct description of the two cities and the visions, the typical panorama of metropolises in 1980s Britain and America is displayed. Thereupon the thesis generalizes the corresponding culture value in that age, setting out to indicate and reprimand the culture as socially decayed and devastating.Based on the static entity discussed in Chapter One, the second chapter continues to explore the dynamic activities of the characters, that is social space embedded in the novel. By applying Henri Lefebvre's theories on social space, this chapter interprets "spatial practice" firstly, by which it represents the protagonist, John Self and other figures'indulgence in pursuing money and pleasure, and points out their corrupted urban lifestyle. By subsequent analysis of "representation of space", the conceived social space of John Self and other characters, this chapter further conveys that the characters' latent desire for entering upper class by playing golf or going to theatre is doomed to be a failure, since they live in 1980s and can't escape from their nature. The third chapter probes into the textual space from the angle of verbal text, to further examine the figures'urban psychological activities, as is shown between lines. In this section, Gabriel Zoran's theory on space in narratology has been applied to conclude two main techniques including flashbacks and repetitions. Constant flashbacks have presented the fiction figures'vague, messy and disorder mental state, while the lengthy repetitions including words like "fear" and imageries such as "money" illustrate their endless chase for materialism or hedonism and everlasting anxiety deep down.In brief, this thesis has elaborated topographical, social and textual space narratives in Money:A Suicide Note and arrives eventually at the urbanity in metropolises of 1980s, which manifests that the decayed mentality results in corrupted life centering on both materialism and hedonism. This study has provided certain reference to understand urban motif, characters portrait and writing technique from the angle of urban spatial narrative. |
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