Tensions Of The Marrative Time In The Sound And The Fury

Regarded as one of the most well-known American writers in the twentieth century and is also thought of as one of the greatest representatives of American Southern literature, William Faulkner plays an important role in American literature and the world literature, which is to some extent determined by his stylistic idiosyncrasies. Due to its superb artistic expressions and his outstanding experimentation with literary style, his masterpiece, SF, is acclaimed as "a whole textbook on the craft of fiction itself."This present thesis attempts to analyze the tension on the narrative time of SF in the light of Gernard Genette’s narrative theory.This thesis includes three parts. The first part is the introduction of the thesis, which mainly offers a literature review on SF, and the theoretical foundation of the present thesis is also recommended. The problems the author of the present thesis is trying to solve and the reasons why the present study is undertaken are also presented in the introductory part.And then, the second part is the body of the present thesis which consists of three chapters. Chapter One analyzes the tension by juxtaposing time order in SF, particularly from the following four points, namely, analepsis in Benjy’s section, prolepsis in Jason’s section, interposed narrative in Quentin’s section and chronological formal time order in Dilsey’s section. SF is noted for its chaotic time order which has attracted readers’attention. Faulkner upsets and distorts the traditional narrative sequence, making the story flowable and jumpy by switching the time order, which creates tension.Chapter Two analyzes the tension by swinging time duration in SF, expounding from the four types of time duration, namely, pause, summary, scene and ellipsis. In this way, duration in narrative time of the novel controls the tempo of SF as to whether to slow down, speed up, or stop, hence rendering the story full of tension.The third chapter is focused on the tension by switching time frequency in SF. With the changing of the frequency, the emphasis of the story changes accordingly. For example, compared with iterative narrative which happens once and is narrated once, Caddy and her loss of virginity’s repetitive narrative which happens once but is narrated N times reflects the changes of the emphasis, which makes the story changeable and abundant.The last part of the present thesis is conclusion. Through the analysis of narrative time of the novel, the present thesis concludes that order, duration and frequency seem conflicting with or even to each other but work together to improve the novel’s artistic appeal and to highlight prominence, thus probing to enhance the understanding and appreciation of the artistic achievements of the novel.