| William Faulkner is known for his experimental writing style.In his seventh novel,Light in August,he continued his formal adventure,appearing in the form of alternative progression of multiple strands.The thesis aims to explore how the narrative strategy is developed and what artistic effects it achieves.The thesis consists of three parts: introduction,body,and conclusion.The body is made up three chapters.Chapter One introduces the meaning system constructed by multiple threads and its symbolic meaning.The rising action of a line was halted by the entrance of new conflicts of another line.The meaning system had thematic references.For example,the central and fragmented narrative line of the protagonist,Joe Christmas,was in line with his menacing and marginalized position in story.Next two chapters discuss the artistic effects accompanied with the structure.Chapter Two focuses on the narrative techniques which provide the “loosely-connected”novel structure with some symbolic coherence,such as recurrence of images in multiple lines,biblical allusions,and spatial connections.It might reflect the reliance of people in the South regardless of color and religion.Chapter Three discusses how dialogues among separate lines gave a polyphonic nature and a sense of unity to the novel.Multiple character focalizers observed the same scene,exchanging expressions equally,and showing the differences of values of various groups of people.Moreover,similar time-scheme of multiple lines was also a kind of dialogue of the lines in narration and thematic concerns.Lengthy flashbacks indicated characters were entrapped in the past,which underscored the burden of past upon South.Multistranded narrative of the novel developed a meaning system which was polyphonic and indeterminate,and readers were made to construct the meaning system according to their interpretations.Through the juxtaposition of multiple lines,the novel achieved a more realistic impression of the world’s multiplicity. |
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