A Study Of Narrative Strategies Of Mrs.Dalloway

Virginia Woolf has established herself as one of the foremost modernist writers of the twentieth century.Woolf makes attempts in her fourth novel Mrs.Dalloway where she breaks the traditional realistic writing skills,and puts emphasis from the outside physical world to the inside mental world.Mrs.Dalloway,one of Woolf's most well-read and popular novels,has inspired new generations of writers and readers.Critics,both at home and abroad,approached Mrs.Dalloway from many different perspectives: feminism,post-colonialism,language and genre studies and so on so forth.Through literature research method,the thesis attempts to study Mrs.Dalloway in light of narratology.The thesis analyzes Mrs.Dalloway from the perspective of narrative focalization,narrative time and narrative space.The intention of this thesis is to reveal the function and effects of narrative strategies.The thesis is composed of five parts:Chapter One,the introduction,gives a brief introduction to Virginia Woolf and Mrs.Dalloway,literature review both within and outside China,and narratology.Chapter Two analyzes the application of focalization in Mrs.Dalloway.The internal focalization is mainly employed as a way to illustrate inner worlds of characters.The abundant employment of internal focalization brings many characters into the stage and makes the novel understood from different perspectives of characters.Zero focalization briefly introduces the setting of the story.Chapter Three explores narrative time of Mrs.Dalloway.The novel is narrated in a non-linear order.The employment of pause in the novel makes the time duration of the novel asymmetrical.The inconsistent time frequency forms narration rhythm of the novel,and unfolds characteristics and relation of characters.Chapter Four analyzes narrative space in Mrs.Dalloway.The physical spaces give the settings of the story.The individual space and social space in Mrs.Dalloway tells the characteristics and social position of characters.Chapter Five summarizes the narrative strategies Woolf employs in the novel and also the limitations of the novel.The thesis reads the novel from the perspective of narratology and presents Woolf's innovative writing skills against traditional writing.