Narrative Analysis Of Uncle Tom’s Cabin From Narrative Focalization

Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe is an American outstanding female writer in the middle of the 19th century. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is one of her representative works. Since the novel came out in 1851, it has received extensive attention in the literary circle. It depicts the miserable life of Negro slaves in American slavery and expounds Stowe’s ideas of abolishing slavery. Uncle Tom’s Cabin exerts great influences on American society, and plays a significant role in promoting the Civil War. Being a classic work in anti-slavery literature, the historical value of Uncle Tom’s Cabin is undisputed, its artistic value remains a controversial issue. Over a century, a large number of scholars at home and abroad have done researches on the history, religion, nationality, femininity, character, theme of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Hence, it’s a comparatively new angle for the author to analyze its artistic features by applying Genere Genet’s theory of narrative focalization.Under the framework of the theory of narrative focalization brought up by French narrative theorist Genere Genet, this paper, taking Uncle Tom’s Cabin as text, attempts to analyze the narrative features and narrative effects of this novel from narrative perspective. In the first place, this paper employs Genere Genet’s three focalizations theory to analyze the narrative features of the novel, displaying Stowe’s versatile techniques in narration. In the second place, the thesis author attempts to explore the narrative effects of the novel from zero focalization, external focalization and internal focalization respectively. First, the use of zero focalization shapes and riches character images, as well as highlights the theme of the novel. Second, the narrative mode of internal focalization enables the narrator to switch flexibly under multiple narrative perspectives, which achieving effects such as highlighting the subjectivity, dramaticity, authenticity and flexibility of the narrative. Third, the emphasis on external focalization displays the ups and downs of the plots. In the last place, through the systematic analysis, this paper confirms the artistic value of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, helping readers to realize that Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a literary masterpiece with the perfect combination of ideological content and artistic form, and its artistic charm endows the novel with powerful vitality that would be passed on from generation to generation.