A Study Of Rhetorical Narrative In Alias Grace

Alias Grace is one of the masterpieces of Margaret Atwood,a prominent contemporary Canadian writer.Based on a historical event,the novel wins her Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Man Booker Prize nomination upon publication.Based on James Phelan's rhetorical narrative theory,the thesis tries to analyze narrative skills in the novel from three aspects: narrative progression,narrative voice and narrative judgment,and discusses how Atwood uses the rhetorical narrative techniques to debunk female's survival plight and to lead readers to a favorable judgment on Grace,the heroine of the novel.Firstly,the thesis deals with the unique narrative progression of the novel.Progression refers to the way in which a narrative establishes its own logic of forward movement,and it is often generated through the introduction of instabilities and tensions.Atwood establishes a tension between Grace as character and as narrator,with the former fragile and helpless while the latter cunning and sophisticated.Then,instabilities such as prison environment,her complicated relationship with Simon,and Mary and Nancy are introduced.Ultimately the tension between Grace as character and as narrator gets altered.Secondly,the thesis analyses narrative voice in the novel.Voices in Alias Grace fall to two camps separately.Grace's defending voice is uttered through first person inner point of view,which facilitates reader's empathy.While voices of antithesis come through third person point of view,which give rise to the unreliability.Thirdly,from the perspective of narrative judgment,the thesis intends to discuss how the author eventually leads readers to favorable judgment on Grace through the intermingled and interacted interpretive,ethical and aesthetic judgments.Through the analysis of rhetorical narrative in Alias Grace,the thesis points out that Atwood leads readers to sympathize with Grace in judgments in an unnoticeable way,which shows the author's rumination on the authenticity of historical truth and care and sympathy for female fate.