An Interpretation Of Stephen King’s Horror Fiction It From Narrative Strategies

Stephen King is the king of contemporary horror novels and master of popular novels,whose novel IT was translated into Chinese and published in China in March 2017.IT is one of Stephen King’s most popular and widely read works.Critics at home and abroad have analyzed the novel from many different perspectives: realism,the theme and the language style of the novel and so on.However,few people mention the ingenious narrative techniques of the novel.This paper uses the method of narrative theory to analyze IT from the perspectives of narrative focus,narrative structure and narrative time,in order to reveal the function and effect of the narrative strategy of the novel.The paper is made up of five chapters.The first chapter is the introduction,which briefly introduces Stephen King and his work IT,the current research of the novel at home and abroad,and related theories of narratology.The second chapter analyzes the application of focus in novels.The novel mainly focuses on the inner world of the characters using the shifting internal focalization.The extensive use of internal focalization leads to the appearance of many characters in the novel,which enables the novel to be interpreted from different perspectives of characters.The third chapter discusses the novels’ narrative time.IT adopts nonlinear time structure.The use of pause in novels constitutes the asymmetry of the distance between novels.The inconsistent rhythm of the novel forms the narrative rhythm of the novel,which shows the character and the relationship between the characters in the novel.The fourth chapter analyzes the narrative structure of the novel.This chapter uses Greimassian symbolic matrix theory to analyze the surface structure and deep structure of the novel,aiming at revealing the underlying logical structure and ideological connotation of the novel.Chapter five concludes the main narrative strategies used by Stephen King in his novel,for instance,the transformation of focalization,the uniqueness of time and the characteristics of narrative structure.Starting from the narrative point of view and taking the novel IT as an example,this paper offers a comprehensive analysis of Stephen King’s literary techniques,and provides a new angle for the further study of the novel IT.