A Study Of The Volcano Lover From The Perspective Of Feminist Narratology

Susan Sontag is one of the most famous contemporary feminism novelists in America. The Volcano Lover is her third novel which is acknowledged to be her most popular work. With the vivid portrayal of various female images, the novel unfolds a panoramic picture of women’s living condition in Europe of the 18 th century. As a female writer, Sontag concerns herself deeply on the females’ social status. Since the novel’s publication in the year of 1992, it has kept winning the scholarly attention. Critics have studied it from different perspectives and have come out with a variety of enlightening understandings, but few works are about the feminist narratology.The thesis attempts to provide a feminist narratological reading of The Volcano Lover. Feminist narratology began in 1980 s, in which Susan Lanser and Robyn Warhol are the prominent leaders. As an interdisciplinary subject, it combines classical narratology with feminist criticism, providing the narrative strategies with gender politics. Through the analysis of narrative voice, narrative perspective and narrative image in the novel, the thesis tends to reveal the depression of women in the patriarchal society. Moreover, it demonstrates the importance of constructing females’ authority and realizing their subjectivity.Besides introduction and conclusion, this thesis consists of four chapters. The introduction gives an account of Susan Sontag and her career as a writer. Then, the literature review and the framework of the thesis are introduced briefly.For the detailed analysis, the first chapter introduces the origin and development of feminist narratology which is rooted from the feminist criticism and the classical narratology. And then, it expounds the terms of narrative voice, narrative point of view and narrative image.Chapter Two analyzes the novel from the narrative voice, which covers a detailed analysis of authorial and communal voice. The authorial voice used by Sontag is necessary to strengthen realness and authority of the narration, the communal voice enables the silenced female characters to become the subjects by which Sontag could complete the whole story.Chapter Three goes on to deal with the novel from the narrative perspectives. By the detailed interpretation, the writer not only breaks the tradition of unchangeable narrative perspective to expound the reading space, but also gazes on the gender politics. Under the male’s point of view, the thesis focuses on the living condition of these women being objectified and then being marginalized to be the Other in the male-dominated society. Through the female’s point of view, the story shows us the process of a woman achieving subjectivity.Chapter Four tries to point out the significance of the narrative images, the lover and the volcano. The male characters created by Sontag are no longer the heroic images, but the ones with deletions on body and psychology. By deconstructing the male’s authority, she tries to affirm these female’s intelligence and self-worth. And the female characters, Catherine, Emma and Fonseca, can be considered as the representatives of the volcano with different kinds of passion. Their living experiences implicated the development of the feminism movement, as the process of the awakening of self-awareness, the pursuit of the self-worth and the resistance of the male authority.The conclusion will restate that in the novel Susan Sontag successfully deploys unique narrative techniques to reveal the subversion of the male-centered narrative tradition. The distinctive strategies enable Sontag to unfold the repression and enslavement to the women in the patriarchal society and demonstrate the significance of establishing the female authority.