The Spatial Narrative In Middlemarch

The late works of George Eliot’s Middlemarch has been widely concerned in literary criticism at home and abroad in recent years, and its literary value in many ways is affirmed. The writing style of this work is extensively analyzed from narratology, which gains substantial achievements in both domestic and international research. The Western classical narratology contains analysis of the various elements of the novel, such as the structure of plot, narrative communication, narrative point of view, narrative time, and narrative space. This thesis explains the complexity of characterization from the spatial narrative.In Chapter one, it is an introduction to the novel, the literary review and the related theory in this thesis. First, it is a brief introduction to the George Eliot’s literary achievements and the status of Middlemarch in her literary writmgs. The second part focuses on the literary review with examples domestically and abroad based on a division of different perspectives of analyzing the novel. The last part is a research on the theory of spatial narrative.Chapter two is the discussion of the manifestation of physical space in Middlemarch. Human being’s basic living space composes the first level of the physical space. The extreme of living space discloses the exaggeration of Casaubon’s gothic space and the beautification of Dorothea’s living space. The second level of the physical space is the movement of sociable space. The scenes of parties of the high class and gossips among the civilians altogether comprise the sociable space in Middlemarch.Chapter three concerns the establishment and the forms of psychological space in the expectation that a story space can be displayed by studying the complicated process of psychology and the interplay between the physical space and psychological space. The first part is a theoretical discussion about the establishment of this space. The second part is the division of psychological space based on the consciousness. The two levels of consciousness are conscious and unconscious. The third part is the interplay between the physical space and psychological space. Conclusion is the last chapter summing up the above three chapters and summarizes how the features and fates of main characters are redisplayed with the theory of spatial narrative.