On Character Depiction In Fictions

Nowadays,most analyses and discussions are focused on the world classic literary works,traditional literary works and works that have gained the Nobel Prize.However,analyses and discussions of contemporary literature and works written by promising writers are much more less.The book that this report will analyze is Save Me,one of the novels written by Lisa Scottoline,the New York Times bestseller.The novel mainly reveals the contradiction between mother's love and moral dilemma,and it further discusses themes of love,courage and good and evil by description of behaviors,mental activities and dialogues.The report is based on the translation of Chapter1 to 9 of the novel.These chapters are one of the climaxes in the novel,depicting figures by vivid description of appearance,mental activities behaviors and dialogues.Character is one of the core elements in novels and successfully characterizing a figure attaches great importance to a novel becoming prominent.When translating novel,the translator should try his or her best to reproduce characters in the target text.The translator should not only 100% understand the source text,but also convey the deep meaning of the text and figures with proper words and expressions.Only in this way,can the translator realize the novel's literary values,literary meaning and aesthetic effects in the translation.The whole task guided by the translation principle of Lin Yutang's faithfulness,fluency and beauty:(a)making preparations before translation,including search for parallel texts and choice for appropriate translation tools,and the design of translation schedule;(b)translating the characters' appearance,behaviors,dialogues and mental activities with proper translation strategies;(c)analyzing representative cases in the source and the target text,trying to find better translation strategies and finally producing a better-quality translation.