Structure And Narrative:Understanding Of Martin Eden Based On Structuralism

Martin Eden is one of representative works of the American writer Jack London,which is a semi-autobiography that truly reflects social realities of American society in the early twentieth century by describing the tragic life of Martin Eden.The novel has received wide concerns from scholars at home and abroad since Martin Eden was published in 1909.However,they just focused on its historical and cultural aspects.The thesis intends to give a comprehensive analysis of the oppositional features reflected in the text on the basis of Structural Semantics represented by Algirdas J.Greimas;and also to analyze the behavioral features and narrative pattern in the light of Narrative Grammar represented by Tzevetan Todorov.These two literary structuralists concentrated on the unity of content and form,but they emphasized the semantic and syntactic aspects of narrative analysis separately.The combination of the two theories can complete the analysis of the text's structural pattern,which contributes to exploring the universal relationship between literature and human life.The thesis intends to understand the text's fundamental structure by using the theory of binary opposition to analyze Jack London's life experience,literary creation and his Martin Eden.Jack London's life experience is a blend of romance and realism,conforming to the theory of binary opposition.The duality in his personality is an underlying structure in the text.Martin Eden is the embodiment of binary oppositions which underlie its theme,setting,characters and symbols.In the light of Todorov's narrative grammar,the thesis analyzes the novel's narrative pattern and common behavioral features of main characters.Their actions all conform to this model:pursue—obtain—lose—pursue.The study of two aspects presents the relationship between characters' life experience and human's common fate.Martin Eden is underlain with binary oppositions in deep structure;the pattern of actions structures the narrative of each character.The understanding of structure andnarrative of the text makes the novel's structural pattern achieve unity in terms of content and form,which reveals universal significance and value of literature.Martin Eden's life experience shows the relationship between literature and human life.The pattern would give profound literary meaning.No matter what kinds of difficulties that people confront with in life,the pursuit of ideals and goals is human being's everlasting spirit.