An Analysis Of The “lost” Theme In A. S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book

A. S. Byatt is a distinguished literary critic, a prolific essayist, reviewer,broadcaster, journalist as well as one of the most important and distinguished Britishnovelists in the contemporary literature. Her recent book The Children’s Book hadbeen shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in2009, and won the James Tait BlackMemorial Prize in2010. It is a book with complex characters, fascinating settings,vivid history, and erudite prose, as well as splendid representation of the art world.Byatt is always famous for her description of the Victorian age. This book is alsoset in this age. With her concern for women, unique narrative techniques, minutepsychological descriptions, and profound moral significance, Byatt creates a richlabyrinth in this piece. Thus, this thesis is to investigate the unique narrative strategies,cultural spirits, and historical abundance of Byatt’s The Children’s Book, byanalyzing both story and discourse, and exploring into its major theme such as theloss of individuals and the loss of the ages and the world. The body of the thesis isdivided into three chapters. Both Chapter one and two investigate the “lost” theme atthe story level. Chapter one looks into the reasons of the lost individuals from socialaspect. First, the situation of the deteriorating society is probed into to reveal the cruelliving condition of individuals. Then, the concepts of Hesiod and WilliamShakespeare on ages of men are adopted to analyze the degradation of the world fromgolden to lead, from order to disorder, and thus illustrate the theme—being lost.Based on theories of feminism, Chapter two elaborates on the spiritual predicament ofthe individuals in that society, through analyzing the state of the lost ones in the noveland the typical women characters. Chapter three concentrates on the “lost” theme atthe discourse level. With the theory of intertextuality, the substantial inserted texts areresearched to show how this imagination and reality interlaced narrative structureserves the theme. Hybrid narrative genres, rich intertextuality as well as variousgraphological deviations are studied to display Byatt’s skilled narrative maze. Thisthesis purports to point out that both story and discourse are indispensable parts in this novel to reflect the “lost” theme of the novel. Also, The Children’s Book carries moreprofound meaning than sheer children’s book. It is a book for both children andgrown-ups, a book that reconstructs history.It is not long since The Children’s Book was published, so there isn’t anysystematical research formed yet. And the research in China has just begun. It’s veryimportant to analyze the brilliant and enigmatical work of such a great writer. Thisthesis is an attempt to make a systematical analysis of The Children’s Book for aprofound understanding of its significance.