The Construction Of Female Narrative Authority In The Hours From The Perspective Of Feminist Narratology

Michael Cunningham,an American novelist as well as screenwriter,is praised as “one of our very best writers” by the L.A.Times(Farrar,1997).His short novel The Hours(1998)was published to great acclaim,which was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize and a PEN/Faulkner award.As most of his works deal with the subjects of love triangles and sexual identity,Cunningham's works mainly focus on the homosexual groups who struggle to shake off the bonds of worldly prejudice,which is also embodied in The Hours.Cunningham,therefore,is regarded by many critics as “a gay writer”.However,his achievement of abundant theses denies such subjectivity and Cunningham himself has strong objections to this one-sided criticism of his works.In fact,with sophisticated writing skills,Cunningham is dedicated to portraying the image of different characters,which not only enriches the themes of his works but also expresses his humanitarian care for the disadvantaged and the underappreciated.Inspired by Woolf's Mrs.Dalloway,Cunningham follows the narrative threads of it through creating the intertwined stories of three women,living in different eras,who struggle with the conflicting claims of love,hope and despair through the space of one day in their lives.The novel narrates the stories of three women with nonlinear narration from the omniscient perspective.It seems that the alternating chapters and the interlaced time and space isolate the women from each other.However,with the employment of narrative voice and the construction of negative plotting,the author reveals the inner worlds of the women and combines their fates with one another so as to give narrative authority to the female characters and manifest the common predicament faced by the women and their aspirations for freedom and independence.This thesis interprets the construction of female narrative authority in The Hours from the perspective of narrative voice,free indirect speech and negative plotting based on the Susan Lanser's feminist narratology.The introduction part provides the information of Cunningham,The Hours and literature reviews of the novel.The first chapter elaborates on feminist narratology and its concerned research strategies,as well as its significance to the construction of female narrative authority in The Hours.Chapter Two takes narrative voice as an entry point to analyze how Cunningham employs the authorial voice,personal voice and communal voice to establish narrative authority for the female characters.Chapter Three studies the dual voice of the narrator and the character from the perspective of free indirect speech,which can strengthen narrative authority as well as achieving the effect of irony when the narrator and the character disagree in opinion.The last chapter employs negative plotting to establish the internal connections within the text from the intersectional female identities,intrinsic and extrinsic negative plotting,so as to construct female subjectivity and strengthen female narrative authority.Based on the theory of feminist narratology,the thesis probes into the construction process of female narrative authority,which reveals the plight of women and their desire for freedom and independence,so as to appreciate the artistic craftsmanship of Cunningham who is adept at portraying the humane and sentimental part of people.