An Analysis Of The Narrative Authority In O Pioneers! From The Perspective Of Feminist Narratology

Willa Cather is a famous American writer in the first half of the 20 th century.Her novel,O Pioneers!,is one of Cather's masterpieces.O Pioneers! is a story about the arduous struggle of the descendants of the Swedish immigrant Alexandra on the west of America.This thesis uses the feminist narratology to analyze the narrative authority of O Pioneers!.Through narrative voice,narrative focalization,and narrative intervention,it is clear that there is an obvious and authoritative narrative authority in this novel.This thesis consists of three parts: the introduction,the body and the conclusion.The introduction part introduces the main content of O Pioneers!,research status of this novel and the theory used in this thesis.The body part discusses the novel from the following three chapters.The first chapter analyzes the narrative voiceof O Pioneers!.It introduces three kinds of narrative voice,authorial voice,personal voice and communal voice respectively.Overtly,the narrator with authorial voice has a stronger narrative authority than the narrator with personal voice or communal voice.In O Pioneers!,Cather utilizes the narrator with authorial voice.There are two acts of the narrator with authorial voice.One act is representation,and the narrator focuses on characters' words and actions.The other act is exrepresentation,and the narrator lays emphasis on thinking and appraising.Under analyzing and researching,it is obvious that the narrator in the two acts has a strong narrative authority.The second chapter analyzes the narrative focalization of O Pioneers!.It discusses the two kinds of narrative focalization,external focalization and internal focalization.The external focalization is the narrative perspective of the narrator,while the internal focalization is the narrative perspective of the characters in the novels.In O Pioneers!,Cather applies the two kinds of narrative focalization.Through the external focalization,the narrator can add his own views into characters and events.Through the internal focalization,female characters can freely describe personal emotions and physical experiences.Undoubtedly,the external focalization and the internal focalization not only exert a considerable influence on readers' minds,but also have a great narrative authority.The third chapter analyzes narrative intervention of O Pioneers!.It analyzes two modes of narrative intervention,engaging narrative intervention and distancing narrative intervention.The engaging narrator keeps in touch with readers,so they prefer to believe what the engaging narrator describes in the novel,whereas the distancing narrator keeps far away from readers.Even though the two narrative interventions have their own relationship with readers,they supply the narrator in O Pioneers! with a strong narrative authority in order to entirely takes control of the novel and maximally affects readers' minds.Therefore,in O Pioneers!,Cather employs the two narrative interventions and the narrators in the two narrative intervention show a great narrative authority from different respects.In conclusion,narrative voice,narrative focalization and narrative intervention have endowed the narrator in O Pioneers! a strong narrative authority.