Postmodernist Narrative Arts In Timequake

Kurt Vonnegut is one of the most influential postmodernist novelists in the United States.In Timequake,his last novel published in 1997,the plots are absurd and casually organized,and the chaos of time sequence and the lack of narrative center and logicality makes it a typical example of postmodernist novel.The text of Timequake consists of fragmented reflection of history,the author's life experience and fantasies.There is no impressive character in the novel,nor does it express a definite theme;for the binary opposition is resolved,subversion of a series of general concepts and rational orders enables readers to understand the absurdity and disorder of postmodern society.By applying strategies like collage,parody and intrusive narrative,the novel shows the spiritual chaos of the Western world in various aspects after the world wars.Based on the theory of postmodernism,this thesis is devoted to exploring the narrative arts in Timequake and analyzing the novel Timequake from the perspective of narrative techniques and writing patterns.This thesis is divided into three chapters:The first chapter is about the unconventional narrative method in the novel,analyzing the subjectivity of the text and the significance of readers' participation by the novel's challenge of logic,loose arrangement of plots and the intertexture of synchronic and diachronic narration.The subjectivity of narration is highlighted by the construction of the novel,and the writer also uses techniques such as fragmentation,collage and reflux of time to break the traditional linear narrative modes.Putting past,present and future altogether,an open and multi-dimensional narrative structure is constructed.As a rebellion of traditional narration,the plot,background and characters in Timequake are fragmented.The second chapter studies the metafictional strategies in the novel,and analyzes them from three aspects:intrusive narrative strategies,shift of perspective and indeterminacy of story,and how does the author construct a microcosmic model of the postmodern world through creative experiments in the text,sums up his writing philosophy,depicts the spiritual world of modern people,breaks the traditional writing framework and shows the ills of the world by a series of narrative techniques.The third chapter narrates the subversion of the grand narrative in Timequake.The depiction of the anti-hero and the petit narrative deconstructs the grand narrative,and subversion of binary opposition of traditional concepts and dissolution of the boundary between reality and imagination in the novel also reflects the author's concern for the fate of mankind.The absurdity of the text in the novel enables readers to understand the absurdity of postmodern society and the crisis of human existence,revealing the emptiness of the spiritual world of modern people,which is contrary to the richness of material world.In the framework of postmodernism,this paper explores the narrative arts in Timequake and the performance of these narrative strategies on the theme of the novel,and tries to analyze the practice and development of these narrative strategies to the postmodernist theory.