On Spatial Narrative In Breakfast At Tiffany's

Breakfast at Tiffany's is one of the masterpieces of Truman Capote,who has won the O.Henry Awards twice.The language in this fiction is concise,which denies any unnecessary modifiers but efficiently guarantees the rich content of the text.With unique narrating techniques and good control of the pace of the story,Capote fully demonstrates his extraordinary writing talent in Breakfast at Tiffany's.It tells a story about how a girl goes to New York alone to seek for her "dream" but finally fails,which presents the loneliness and powerlessness of females in urban society.Studies of Breakfast at Tiffany 's are mostly concerned with the theme of the text or the features of characters,with few doing specialized study on the narrative art of the fiction.This thesis tries to analyze the fiction from the perspective of space under the guidance of spatial narrative,which emphasizes the importance of spatial arrangement instead of the sequence of time in a narrative text.As a literary theory,spatial narrative is enlightened by the transfer of study focus on space in the domain of Philosophy and Social Science in the late 20th century,of which Henri Lefebvre's examination of space and Michel Foucault's spatial theory are of great help to this thesis.The art of spatial narrative in this text is analyzed from four perspectives,namely physical space,psychological space,social space and textual space.Firstly,in physical space,the relationship between physical settings and the behaviors of characters is analyzed.The features of the countryside and the city New York are in sharp contrast with each other,which influence Holly in different ways.The transfer of space from countryside to New York also indicates the development of the story and leads to the changes of Holly.What's more,Holly's room,the prison and Tiffany's are three specific physical settings in New York forming into various"heterotopias",which demonstrate people's dissatisfaction with their lives and their isolation from their living space.Secondly,in psychological space,Holly's complicated psychological state towards "home",intimate relationship as well as Money and Fame is revealed.The"home" exists in Holly's inner space while Money and Fame belongs to the outside world,and the intimate relationship indicates an approach to welcome outside space into inner space.Holly holds a constant angst towards "home",keeps a cautious sense of distance from intimate relationship and remains a contradictory attitude towards Money and Fame,which all demonstrate Holly's sense of protection for inner space and against outside space.Thirdly,in social space,the influence of the urban society and the power oppression from "others" on Holly are presented.The culture of instrumental rationality highlights the importance of money,which shapes a society featured by indifference and hypocrisy.People under this inhuman social environment operate power oppression on Holly constantly,among which O.J.Berman is a typical representative for the oppression from males and Madame Spanella for the females.It's a common phenomenon for both sexes to disrespect females,which is rooted from the disadvantageous economic status of females.Finally,in textual space,the spatial forms in the text are explored,in which the unique narrative angle,the circular time sequence,the space-time performance and the choice of language which is best performed by recurrent symbolic images efficiently fulfill the content of the text and highlight the theme.According to the analysis above,this thesis interprets the theme construction of Breakfast at Tiffany's under the guidance of spatial narrative,which is expected to enrich the study of Breakfast at Tiffany's at home and help deepen reader's comprehension on the theme of the text,thus providing a new research angle for the study of urban novels.