The Writing Of Psychological Realism In Oates’s Novels

This paper starts with the writing technique of psychological realism, uses the theoretic methods of psychoanalysis, feminist criticism and narratology, analyzes Oates’s novels "I’ll Take You There", "Middle Age-a Romantic Journey", and also refers to Oates’s early "National Chart Award"-winning novels "Them" and "My Sister, My Love". This paper proposes that the writing of psychological realism is closely related to characterization, plot expression, theme reveal and narrative techniques in Oates’s novels.This paper is divided into four parts. The first chapter of the paper begins the analysis basing on the Oates’s utilization of psychological realism technique, and explores Oates’s outstanding contribution to human psychology description. On one hand, she inherited the predecessors’psychological expressive techniques, using techniques like interior monologue, stream of consciousness, memory and symbol to express character psychology; on the other hand, Oates achieved some innovations. She used the contrast between character’s "imagination and reality" to highlight psychology, using character’s "dream" and "subconsciousness" to suggest psychology. She insisted on putting her novel’s emphasis on the expression of character’s inner consciousness. The second chapter of the paper bases on exploring how the psychological narration expresses the social reality in Oates’s novels. Through psychological realism, Oates showed the novel’s reality, including the real environment, character, plot and theme. The technique of psychological realism has already been a narrative element of Oates’s novel creation. The third chapter of the paper explores how the writing of psychological realism enriches the theme and plot in Oates’s novels. The author incorporated her own pursuit of growth theme, feminism, the ultimate meaning of life into character’s psychological narration, revealing the alienation and confusion of modern people, touching the current social problems and value orientation in America. The fourth chapter explores Oates’s contribution to novel creation from the perspective of creation theory and narratology. Oates abandoned the single narrative mode, adopted various narrative techniques and angles to create characters and describe plots, especially the "latent narration’" and the "’hidden structure’", greatly enriching the creation mode of psychological realism novels.So far, the academic research on Oates has begun. I hope that through the study of Oates’s writing technique of psychological realism, I could provide new perspectives and contribution to the research on Oates’s novels.