An Analysis Of Narrative Techniques In V.S.Naipaul's Half A Life

As a British Indian writer,V.S.Naipaul is one of the most important post-colonial writers in the 20th century.Half a Life,an important work in his later writing career,describes the life of colonial people and points out the problems of cultural belonging and identity.This thesis explores the effect of Naipaul's narrative techniques on the expression of the characters and the plot from various angles of narrative time,narrative space and narrative perspective.Meanwhile,it also explores the influence of narrative techniques on the expression of the theme of a sense of cultural belonging and identity pursued by the protagonist Willie in the work.There are four parts in this thesis.The first part introduces the author V.S.Naipaul and his work Half a Life.The second part briefly categorizes the researches on Naipaul and his works in China and abroad.Part three analyzes Naipaul's narrative techniques used in the novel from three aspects including nonlinear narrative time,multi-space transformation and multi-perspective narrative.Firstly,in the aspect of narrative time,this thesis mainly analyzes the narrative techniques of flashback,narration interspersed with flashbacks and delayed decoding.The use of these techniques gradually pushes the plot of the novel to a climax and emphasizes the theme.It also makes the whole story more interesting and more attractive.Secondly,the narrative of the multi-space transformation in this thesis refers to the shift of topographical space,social space and psychological space.Through the shift of space,the splendid and multi-level expressions of the novel are depicted.The shift of space makes characters more realistic and the plot more intricate and fascinating,which supports the expression of the theme of the novel.Thirdly,the multi-perspective narrative includes the interactive use of the first-person and the third-person perspectives.The employment of different perspectives of characters makes a fluent story and vivid characters,which is conducive to the expression of the theme of the novel.The last part summarizes the functions of the narrative techniques in Naipaul's novel.The use of these narrative techniques enables the author to depict the story from different levels and to present the story completely and intuitively to readers,which is good for the expression of the theme of a sense of cultural belonging and identity in Half a Life at the same time.