A Reading Of Margaret Drabble’s The Needle’s Eye From The Perspective Of Feminist Narratology

As a contemporary British female novelist, Margaret Drabble isone of the writers in the English literary world who devoteconsiderable attention to the feminist movement and are concernedwith the British society, especially the problems with which thefemale intellectuals are confronted. The Needle’s Eye is considered bythe critics as a turning point of her writings with both the features ofher early and later works in it. The feminist critics focus on the themeof women’s self-pursuit and breakthrough as well as the structure andnarrative strategies of this novel, while few studies are conducted toexplore the connection between the theme and structure.The thesis is aimed at uniting the study of theme and form anddiscussing how Drabble constructs the feminist narratologicalauthority through different narrative voices and discourses from theperspective of the interdisciplinary literary theory, applying Genette’stheory of narrative discourse and the founder of feminist narratologySusan Lanser’s theory of narrative voice.