The Narrative Strategies Of Station Eleven

Station Eleven,written by Emily St.John Mandel,was published in 2014.This novel won many important literary awards in the first year after its publication,including the 2015 Arthur C.Clarke Award and the 2015 Toronto Book Award.It was also nominated for the National Book Award,the PEN/ Faulkner Award for Fiction and Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction in the same year.This novel is a typical science fiction and post-apocalyptic novel,the story of which takes place in the future world destroyed by a fictional pandemic flu,known as the Georgia Flu,and follows a troupe of actors who perform Shakespearean plays from town to town in the Great Lakes region.There are many characters in the novel,but the real main characters are only four—Jeevan,Kirsten,Miranda and Clark.Mandel abandons the traditional writing skills in the description of these four main characters,but expresses her thoughts towards reality with some innovative narrative skills.By analyzing the narrative strategies from the narrative theory of Gérard Genette used in this novel,the thesis intends to elucidate Mandel's creative and super narrative writing skills and to explore her great concern about culture,society and people's psychology.This thesis is divided into five parts.Apart from an introduction and a conclusion,it has three chapters.The introduction briefly introduces Mandel and her novel Station Eleven.It also contains the existing research on this novel both at home and abroad,which leads to the research angle of this thesis.Then,it introduces the narrative theory of Genette.And finally,it discusses the significance of this thesis.Chapter One analyzes this novel from the perspective of narrative focalization.In Genette's narrative theory,narrative focalization is divided into three types: zero focalization(also known as the so-called omniscient narrator),internal focalization(the narrator only narrates what a character knows),and external focalization(the narrator narrates less than what the character knows).This chapter uses the concrete examples to analyze Mandel's skillful use of narrative focalization in her novel,which explores the importance of the multiple focalization in enriching the interestingness of the novel.Chapter Two focuses on the analysis of the characteristics of this novel from the perspective of narrative time.According to Genette,narrative time is divided into three types: time order,time duration and time frequency.It is obvious that the narrative time is disordered,non-linear,and non-chronological by analyzing the time sequences of the novel,which contains the past,present and future of the collapse.Mandel uses this kind of narrative skills to show sci-fi features of her novel,which makes it more attractive.Chapter Three explores the variable narrative discourse in this novel.In his view,Genette also divides narrative discourse into three types: narrated discourse,indirect narrated discourse and dramatic narrated discourse.Through these three types of narrative discourse,Mandel develops the plot of the story and displays the features of the characters in her novel.From the specific research in this chapter,it is easy to find that this unique narrative strategy plays an important role in the author's creation of her novel.The conclusion makes a summary of this thesis and advocates for culture and human spirit.In Station Eleven,Mandel's concern about the spiritual civilization calls for people to appreciate the value of the culture.By using the unique and skillful narrative strategies,Mandel clearly presents the reader the life of the post-apocalyptic world and the main characters' experiences and thoughts.With a spiritual being,these characters of the novel successfully set a good example to how to survive in the destroyed world.In order to live a real and rich life,people should not only give up their pursuits for the spiritual world,but need to have faith in the power of the culture and spirit.