An Analysis On The Construciton Of Implied Author Behind The Unreliable Narration In The Good Soldier

Ford Madox Ford was an indispensable figure in the history of British literatureand one of the pioneers of British modernism at the turn of the20th century. TheGood Soldier is his representative work, and regarded as a typical modernist fiction.As a master of narrative techniques, Ford explored in the writing of the novel TheGood Soldier, and tested new narrative methods, among which unreliable narrativetechnique has been discussed most frequently by recent scholars. It is difficult forreaders to construct the image of the implied author in the novel since it lies not onlybetween the lines but behind the narrator’s complicated unreliable narration.The thesis takes classical rhetoric narrative theories represented by Booth andPhelan as its theoretic foundation, striving to penetrate the unreliable narration, findthe authorial position and construct the implied author by exploring the rhetoricdevices of its unreliable narrator and implied author as well as their relationshipbetween the real author. This thesis is composed of five chapters. Chapters one andtwo lay the general information, literature review of The Good Soldier and thetheoretical basis of unreliable narration and the implied author formulated by WayneBooth. Based on Booth and Phelan’s theories of unreliable narrator, chapter threeidentifies the unreliability of narrator Dowell, and realizes the large narrativedistance. Then this thesis tries to reach the ironic construction of implied authornamely and the implied author pushes the narrator Dowell to the ironic object. Inchapter four, when the thesis goes into the analysis of the real author, the impliedauthor secretly withdraws the negative attitude towards the narrator and sympathizesboth character-narrator Dowell and his rival Edward. After the thesis makescontrasts between the life of real author Ford and the two characters, it graduallyconstructs the image of the implied author, who is in a quandary between the twomain characters in the novel. Finally this thesis attempts at the conclusion that thereal author Ford considers himself as either Dowell or Ashburnham or, as morelikely, a mixture of the two contradictory characters. And Ford wrote the novel with the main purpose of experimentally exploring the future of himself, hoping at thesame time the implied author would induce readers’ sympathy and compassion forboth the two characters.