【英语论文】《了不起的盖茨比》中的叙述技巧(英文).doc

外国语学院学生毕业论文题 目THE NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES IN THE GREAT GATSBY 了不起的盖茨比中的叙述技巧 专 业 英 语 班 级 01332 学生姓名 章 学 成 学 号 34 指导教师 方 文 开 2005年 05月10日CatalogueAbstract3摘要31. Introduction42. The new and unique point of view52.1 The Point of View of “I” as Witness52.2 The Transgression of the Point of View62.3 The Shift of the Point of View83. The Exquisite Arrangement of Spatio-temporal Structure93.1 The Narrative Time103.2 The Spatial Structure124. Conclusion13Bibliography15AbstractAs a perfect work of modern narrative art, Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby, with the union of its content and form, fully presents the authors effort for the development of traditional narrative techniques. Through using the new and unique narrative point of view and the exquisite arrangement of spatio-temporal structure, the author creates dramatic effects to strengthen the specific artistic charm and highlight the novels concept content. This article explores the narrative features in The Great Gatsby in terms of “I” as witness, the transgression and the shift of the point of view to demonstrate the special and distinct techniques in the point of view and also analyses the exquisite arrangement of spatio-temporal structure of The Great Gatsby from the perspective of narration key words.Key words: the point of view, narrative person, spatio-temporal structure, narrative time, The Great Gatsby摘 要 作为一部叙述艺术的精品之作，费茨杰拉德的了不起的盖茨比以其内容与形式的完美统一，有力地体现了作者对传统叙述技巧的发展。通过对新颖独特的叙述视角和独具匠心的时空结构的安排，作者使小说产生与众不同的戏剧效果，加强了作品其艺术感染力，同时也深化了作品的思想内容。本文从第一人称见证人叙述视角、视角越界及视角转换等三个方向探讨作品中独特的叙述视角，从叙述学分析其别具一格的时空结构。关键词: 叙述视角；叙述人称；时空结构；叙述时间；了不起的盖茨比THE NARRATIVE TECHNIQUESIN THE GREAT GATSBY1. IntroductionThe Great Gatsby is considered not only the most prominent work of F. Scott Fitzgerald, but also one of the most outstanding novels in Modern American Fiction. The detail on art world in the novel profoundly reveals the hollowness of the American worship of riches and the unending American dreams of love, splendor and gratified desires. It is a symbol for an age. On the art form, it characterizes clarity, imposing and proficient and still enjoys high reputation about it now. Born in Saint Paul, Mirnesota, in 1896, Fitzgerald was the only son of a socially prominent and genteelly poor family. With the financial aid of relatives he entered Princeton University. In 1917, he left before graduating to serve in the US Army in Alabama, where he became engaged to Zelda Sayre. After his discharge from the army in 1919, he took a job with an advertising agency and worded on short stories and a novel at night. Eventually his first novel, The Side of Paradise was accepted for publication and appeared in March 1920. It was an instant success and brought Fitzgerald fame and wealth. In the same year Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre were married. They plunged into the gaudy, wealthy society of their generation. The couple lived so extravagantly that they frequently spent more money than Fitzgerald earned. In order to earn more money, Fitzgerald continued to write. In 1922 he published his second novel, The Beautiful and Damned, and a collection of short stories, Tales of the Jazz Age. In 1925, Fitzgerald managed to complete The Great Gatsby. It was a critical success but a commercial failure. His next novel, Tender Is the Night (1934) was received coldly mainly because America was deep in the Great Depression and nobody wanted to read about expatriates in France. Battered by the failure of the book and Zeldas mental breakdowns, he drank to excess and grew seriously ill, died in 1940.The Great Gatsby is a story about American dreams. Nick Carrawlly, a young man from the Middle Western American, leaves home to East American for live. During his adrift life, he knows the fictions protagonist Gatsby and eyes the whole process of Gatsbys tragedy. Nick uses a special narrative form to describe a story of this poor Mid-Westerner Jay Gatsby. The young Gatsby loves Daisy who has married Tom Buchana, a brute of a man, for his various criminal activities, including bootlegging, seeks out Daisy and Tom. Drawn by his wealth and his devotion, Daisy becomes his mistress. When as a hit-and-run driver she kills Myrtle, a wife of a garage man and Toms mistress. Gatsby tries to protect her. He is shot when Tom in a fit of jealousy betrays him falsely to Myrtles husband. At his death, all of his so-called friends abandon him.In this novel, Fitzgerald gets the context and form to connect perfectly. Through using the new and unique narrative point of view and the exquisite arrangement of spatio-temporal structure, the author creates dramatic effects to strengthen the specific artistic charm and highlight the novels concept content. All these things appear fully the authors effort for the development of traditional narrative techniques.2. The New and Unique Point of ViewThe point of view means “the narrators perspective to tell stories, and the readers basic rule to judge the world in stories” (Li Jianxin 2003:105). It prescribes narrators scope to narrate, often used with narrative person. The narrative person not only makes clear tellers position but also demonstrates the narrative way the teller takes. Before the 20th century, fictions narration was always adopted sole narrative person to tell stories, using first person or third person. As far as the point of view, omniscience almost monopolized the narrative market. From the beginning of the 20th century, novelists eyes on fiction tended from “its traditional society and ethic values to artistic performance” (Wu Weiren 1990:162). The narrative of modern fiction is not content with sole narrative person in whole fiction and broke out it to take two or multiple foci of narrative person. So it turned up some new phenomena in narrative features like the transgression and the shift of the point of view. The Great Gatsby, as a bright pearl in the world literature, embodies the narrative features of modern fiction and also reveals Fitzgeralds mature artistic skill.2.1 The Point of View of “I” as WitnessThe whole story of Gatsby is based on Nicks memories, using the first person “I”. Nick is not only the teller of the story, but also a key character in the story. He is a witness of many things. This narrative way is called “I as witness” (Pilip Sterik 1967:125) in Pilip Steviks The Theory of the Novel. It makes the story more reasonable and infectious and creates “harsh critics and deepened connotive meanings” (Wu Weiren 1990:219). As a morality criticizer, Nick instead of the author judges every character in the story including him himself. This way of narrative strengthening storys reality and theme, makes the story as an integral whole and invulnerable. In the novel, Nike is “both in and out of the story” (Xu Dai 1992:105). Because of his multiple positions, he is in the story. Nick is the protagonist Gatsbys neighbor; Daisys brother once removed; Toms classmate in college and the sweetie of Daisys close friend, Jordan. He is a tie, which joints many contradictions and conflicts between characters and a key figure in the complicate relations net, being everywhere and everything. Fitzgerald lets him use curious eyes to view Gatsbys actions and holds sympathy to suppose Gatsbys thoughts. This creates distinct art effects. Nike is out of the story because those contradictions and conflicts are no business to him. He can take an objective and calm attitude to value them. Through Nike eyes, readers learn everything happened in the story. Nike shows the charm and glamour, the degeneration and disgracefulness in the upper class in front of readers. As a witness who “has strong flexibility and broad and various information” (Pilip Sterik 1967:125), he can observe Gatsby actions standing far from him and get lots of information about Gatsby identity from peoples guesses and gossips in the party. He also can witness the desolate sight after Gatsbys death, which makes a comparison with Gatsbys flashy live during his lifetime. This tragic effect cannot be taught by other narrative ways.Using “I” as witness to narrative the story, Fitzgerald let readers feel things directly in the story. But as a writer he hides himself behind the case. “This non-individualistic technique makes the novel get a true effect” (Booth 1997:302). Besides, using a character in the story as the narrator and the first person to tell the story let readers experience personally. All of these make the story more vivid and persuasive.2.2 The Transgression of the Point of ViewThough “I” as witness can bring vivid and persuasive effect on readers, it has some shortcomings. The narrator can only describe things which he knows but cannot walk into other characters minds and gains their thoughts. This hinders the narrator to reveal characters inner being avoiding readers to learn their figures more clearly. Thus, the narrator must transcend his narrative limits to present things. This phenomenon is called the transgression of the point of view. In The Great Gatsby, when Nike has a perspective to Gatsby, Daisy, Tom and other characters in his or others opinion, he has surpassed his narrative limits as a first person narrator. There are many obvious cases about such transgression.In chapter five, after the statement of the sight of Gatsby and Daisys reunion after five years, Nike comments Gatsby using the tone of first person “I”.As I went over to say good-by I saw that the expression of bewilderment had come back into Gatsbys face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness. Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams-not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of five or freshment can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart (Fitzgerald 1982:128).In this comment, the statement “Almost five years!” likes Gatsbys heart saying. It is Nikes supposition to Gatsbys inner being. Normally speaking, Nike cannot know it as a first person narration. Thus, the narrator transcends his narrative limits here. But after this transgression, the narrator leads readers into Gatsbys mind and lets readers catch Gatsbys emotion changes. In this way, readers feel reasonable about Gatsbys feeling“a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness” and faithful about the narrators comment.In chapter six, when Nike pictures a date of Gatsby and Daisy before five years, he himself is something like a vidicon to show Gatsbys actions firstly. But later, he states “Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place about the tree” (Fitzgerald 1982:148). From here, there appears the transgression of the point of view. The narrator leaps out his narrative limits to make a perspective to the characters inner being. Because when he narrates like a vidicon, he cannot go into characters mind to learn about theirs thoughts. Again, through the transgression the narrator successfully joints Gatsbys ideal ambition and his pursuit for Daisys love closely, making readers know clear that Daisy is Gatsbys chasing lover, more important, she is the avatar of Gatsbys dream. Such special narrative skill appears again in the following paragraph. In the beginning, Nike tells things also like a vidicon. But when he says “He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God” (Fitzgerald 1982:149), he is becoming a omniscient narrator who knows everything because these are Gatsbys inner being, others cannot learn. But from “then”in next sentences “then he kissed her. At his lips touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete” (Fitzgerald 1982:149), the omniscient narrator goes back again like the vidicon to tell things. After these twice transgression of the point of view, the narrator again finely lets reader know well about Gatsbys contradictive feelings at that time. Truthfully speaking, if there are not these transgressions, readers could only observe Gatsby as a looker-on. They are not able to appreciate the content of Daisys symbolic meanings for Gatsby and Gatsbys contradictive feelings in the process of getting this symbolic thing. In fact, the main line of Gatsbys beautiful dream for his pursuit and his contradictive feelings on this road go through all along The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald highlights this line by the transgression. It is very important for developing the novels theme.2.3 The Shift of the Point of ViewUnlike the transgression of the point of view, the shift of the point of view is another special figure in The Great Gatsby. The latter is “legal” while the former is “illegal”. It is an expedient measure to use the transgression little range and temporarily when needed. But when the narration needs from one point of view to another largely for a long time, the transgression is incompetent but only the shift of the point of view can do. In The Great Gatsby, the shift mainly presents in the first person narration, though limited in essence, tending to be omniscient or partially omniscient.In chapter two, when the narrator pictures Toms mistress, he uses the shift of the point of view. It is a rumor for Nick about Tom having a mistress, so when he states about this event, it is reasonable for him to use the omniscient narrative. But quickly, the omniscient narrative tends to the first person narrative “Though I was curious to see her, I had no desire to meet herbut I did.” (Fitzgerald 1982:31). Here, this changes result on the development of the storys plot for The Great Gatsby is about the story of Gatsby not of Tom. Thus, in order to not be far away from the center event and let readers attention focus on the latter narration, the narrator must change the narrative eyes to avoid enlarging readers observation.In chapter seven, where the narrator Nike presents Daisy and Gatsbys emotional reactions after Gatsby and Toms direct conflict, he firstly uses the eye of “I” to observe Gatsby, Daisy and Tom, then instead by the eye of “he”. It is to say that the point of vie