| Since the publication of his first novel Metroland in 1980,Julian Barnes has published another 13 novels.In most of his novels,seemingly ordinary and normal heterosexual marriages are always broken or on the verge of breaking.More importantly,in such marriage puzzles,most people fall into the chaotic adultery relationship.This thesis takes Flaubert’s Parrot,Arthur&George and The Sense of an Ending as the research object.The first two novels were shortlisted and the last won the Man Book Prize.Three types of Barnesian adultery,its causes,roles,and significance of this motif are studied.Three novels in question share the same plot structure.Involved in adultery experience,the male narrator is traumatized.He escapes to specific"hobby",namely,Gustave Flaubert,a detective experience,and modified past history.In addition,the types of adultery and their causes in these three novels are different.They are independent but complement each other.Putting these three works under universal research framework can comprehensively analyze the literal,cultural,and social significance of writing adultery.In the first chapter,this thesis focuses on the extramarital relations which are classified into three variants according to the identities of the transgressors and the nature of the transgression.They are husband’s romantic love,wives erotic love affairs and mother’s pure sacrifice.The archetype of these three types of adultery can be traced back to courtly love,seduction novel,and stories of outcast women.In the second chapter,the thesis focuses on the causes behind adultery.Marriages in Victorian context were distorted by utilitarian marriage ethics.Based on such social norms,the "invalid" spouses were doomed to be replaced.Although the other two marriages in modern context are free from the social manipulation,they are still disintegrated in the alienation between souls and the awakening of the wife’s instincts.In the third chapter,the thesis juxtaposes three types of adultery,revealing that the triangular structure provides endogenous narrative momentum for the novel and stimulates characters’transformation,which makes them much more developed.What is more important is that the existence of this immoral relationship allows people to see the crisis in seemingly harmonious marriages,and to look forward to and call for a new marriage paradigm.Julian Barnes goes deep into marriages and sharply points out that they are no longer warm harbors,but a field of intense conflicts between spouses.With more and more tolerance of adultery,turbulent adultery has gradually replaced harmonious and stable marriage.It even becomes an inevitable end of all marriages in his books.However,this is not a rebellion.Instead,he is certain about the importance of marriage.It rises from shelter for body to hotbed for spirits.Its rupture in modern contexts stands for the exile of the adulterer and the absence of the betrayed self.Death has become the most effective solution.In order to be liberated from this dilemma,Barnes points to the general passivity of the narrators.They claim to be innocent but never take effort to maintain let alone repair conjugal bonds.Adultery narratives,an eclectic approach,has become the most direct link between the parties.When marriage changes from social contract to the free combination between individuals,the stability of marriage is no longer managed by an external force but an inner emotion.The active maintenance of this relationship between husband and wife has become the key to marriage salvation. |
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