An Analysis Of Narrative Strategies Reflecting The Multiple Themes In The Narrow Road To The Deep North

Richard Flanagan,one of the most prominent authors in contemporary Australia,has successfully attracted the critics’ attention due to his sixth novel,The Narrow Road to the Deep North,which won the 2014 Man Booker Prize.Set against the background of Australian POWs building the Thai-Burma Railway for Japan,the novel recounts the miserable experience of the protagonist Dorrigo and the POWs,revealing the devastating consequence of the war for the victims.For The Narrow Road to the Deep North,a narrative work with a long time span and many characters,the employment of a variety of narrative techniques can not only make the novel more attractive and have more artistic tension,but also highlights the themes of the novel.Therefore,based on Gérard Genette’s narratology theory and the method of close reading,this thesis attempts to analyze the antiwar theme,the theme of love and the theme of humanity,and it studies how the narrative strategies of narrative focalization and narrative time reflect the multiple themes of The Narrow Road to the Deep North.The thesis studies the antiwar theme from the perspectives of the cruelty of war,the disillusion of love,the trauma of war,and the title of the novel,and analyzes how the narrative strategies of zero focalization,external focalization,anachrony,scene and summary fully reveal the destructive power of war and the harm it brings to human beings.The theme of love is discussed in a broad sense,including love between men and women,mateship between companions,and love for literature.Based on the three aspects of love,the thesis explores how the theme of love is demonstrated through narrative strategies such as zero focalization,internal focalization,analepsis and scene.Complex human nature is an important theme that Flanagan wants to express.The thesis analyzes how zero focalization,internal focalization,ellipsis and scene reflect the following three aspects of human nature: distorted humanity,human virtue,and desire for survival.The theme of human nature enriches the connotation of the novel,for it is more a novel about people than a novel about war and history.By analyzing how the novel’s narrative strategies reflect multiple themes,the thesis not only presents Flanagan’s unique narrative techniques,but also reveals theprofound thematic connotation of the novel: war has brought endless disasters to human beings,multifaceted humanity is fully demonstrated in these disasters,and only love can give people hope and comfort.Therefore,complex and diverse narrative strategies not only promote the development of the events,but also reveal the multiple themes of the novel.