On The Spatial Narration In To Kill A Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird is a well-known novel written by American writer Harper Lee. It is widely acknowledged as an excellent work. Since its publication in 1960, scholars have published various studies on it. However, few scholars studied it from the perspective of spatial narrative. This thesis uses Gabriel Zoran’s theory of spatial narrative and Henri Lefebvre’ theory of social space to analyze To Kill a Mockingbird. It explores Harper Lee’s spatial awareness in her literary creation and argues that Harper Lee utilizes chronotopic space as the plotting principle of the story. And on the chronotopic level, she vividly represents a small southern town. She portrays characters through the reconstruction of topographic space and the textual space shows its fragmented and multi-dimensional characteristics. Harper Lee represents an American southern social space which is characterized by its class prejudice, gender inequality and racial discrimination.Maycomb,the town where all the story happens in To Kill a Mockingbird, is a chronotopic space at rest. It is in isolation. Scout and Jem’s movement in it is the plotting principle of the story. Their movements offer a clue to the readers to trace the development of the story. The description of topographic space helps to portray characters. In the novel, the personalities of characters are often revealed through the topographic spaces they live in. The analysis in the thesis may arouse readers’ thinking about the relationship between the topographic spaces and the characters’ personal traits in the novel. On the textual level, Harper Lee breaks up the linearity of narration and offers fragmented information in her process of narration, and she changes perspectives. This makes the textual space shows its disconnected and multi-dimensional characteristics. Through the depiction of the different locations of dwelling places, the main residential street and the official buildings, Harper Lee successfully reconstructs a small southern town in American South. Through long-term social practice, Maycomb becomes a representative social space. In this social space, people are classified into different class groups and each group occupies a certain area in town. They carefully maintain the boundaries between them. Women are thought inferior to men and they are confined within the traditional family space, such as in the kitchen. The black people are the most pathetic sufferers in this social space. Readers may truthfully experience a social space where class prejudice, gender inequality and racial discrimination prevail.Using spatial narrative theory to analyze this work may help the readers to grasp the inner structural principle of the work and to have a better understanding of Harper Lee’s spatial narrative techniques as well as her deep concern about the social problems in American South.