A Study Of The Space Narrative In An American Tragedy

As a masterpiece of Theodore Dreiser,a naturalist in the United States,An American Tragedy continues the spirit of the author's former works that truly reflected the real society in the United States,but it is more mature in art.Whether it is adapted from the story of the real case content,or the arrangement of all the chapters and sections,shows Dresser's originality.Therefore,after the publication of the work,it will be well accepted by readers.The academic circle also made multi-perspective researches on An American Tragedy from a professional point of view,fully understanding the profound criticism of the American social reality and the cleverness of plot structure.This paper attempts to use the theory of narrative space to study An American Tragedy and analyze the spatial structure and its function,which is the spatial narration of this novel.This article is divided into three chapters:The first chapter is a theoretical overview,combing the space theory of narration.Narrative space theory is a kind of expansion theory of narratology in the space with the turning of the field of philosophy and social science,which involves the space of the story and the space of form in the narrative space.Specifically,narratology focuses on the study of their concepts,ways of reproduction and their narrative functions.In this paper,we study An American tragedy based on these two theories of space.This chapter lays the theoretical foundation for the textual analysis.The second chapter analyzes the story space of An American Tragedy.The story space in An American Tragedy involves the physical space,the social space and the spiritual space.Therefore,the author divides this chapter into three sections to explain the construction of the physical space,social space,and spiritual space of the novel and their roles in the narrative.The physical space is a specific place where a series of plot stories occur in the novel.The social space is a series of social relations that the hero Clyde Griffith gradually formed in the process of social practice.The spiritualspace is a kind of the psychological space in which the characters in the novel generally present two different contents.The one is a secular spiritual space represented by Clyde,the another is religious spiritual space represented by Clyde's mother Elvira.These three types of space undoubtedly play an extremely important role in promoting the development of the novel and displaying the real world.The third chapter analyzes the formal space of An American tragedy.The novel shows two forms in space: On the one hand,some plots of the novel unfold in a linear form.This linear form can be called linear space;on the other hand,the overall structure of the novel also presents some schemata forms,which are also known as schema space.Both forms of space play an irreplaceable role in controlling the tempo of narrative,raising the reader's interest and deepening the theme.This thesis studies An American tragedy by using the theory of narrative space.it is important to explore the mysteries of all kinds of space in participating in the narrative process of this novel and regains the artistic charm of this novel.However,it is more important to unearth the problems of American social reality exposed by the space in the process of achieving harmony and unity between the contents and forms of the novel,thus bringing a new enlightenment and warnings to readers today.