A Study Of Narrative Time And Narrative Space In Faulkner's Short Stories

As a Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 1949,William Faulkner built his reputation in the world for his excellent writing techniques and his concerns for human.In his "Yoknapatawpha",he draws a picture of American south in the transition from the old to the new and reveals the contradictions and conflicts between the whites and the blacks,between the poor whites and the white aristocrats,and between the male and the female.From New Criticism to Structuralism and to Cultural Criticism,Faulkner studies developed from internal to external,and from intradisciplinary to interdisciplinary,which presents a dynamic trend.Although domestic and foreign scholars have studied his works profoundly and comprehensively,they mainly focused on some of his famous novels such as The Sound and the Fury and Light in August.Compared with novels,the studies on short stories still have room for improvements in depth and scope,except for the A Rose for Emily and The Bear.Therefore,this thesis selects five of his representative short stories as the text of study:A Rose for Emily,Dry September,That Evening Sun,Wash,and Barn Burning.Based on Genette's narrative time and Lefebvre's narrative space,on the one hand,it discusses techniques of narrative time in Faulkner's short stories in terms of order,duration and frequency;on the other hand,it analyzes techniques of narrative space in terms of physical space,social space and psychological space at the story level,and studies the use of spatial forms like psychological montage and juxtaposition of multiple clues at the text level.Through the above analysis,the major findings of this thesis can be concluded as follows:Firstly,Faulkner controls the narrative pace in his stories by adopting different techniques of narrative time,which forms a musical rhythm to promote the development of plot and deepen the theme.Secondly,Faulkner avoids the direct descriptions of bloody scenes by using techniques such as ellipses and psychological montage,which keeps his readers focus on the causes of tragedies,not merely these horrible scenes.Thirdly,Faulkner also depicts the struggling and conflicts of characters from different classes,races and genders by creating physical,social and psychological spaces,and reveals the causes of the disadvantaged people's tragedies.