On The Dual Narration In Willa Cather's Fiction

Willa Cather(1873-1947) was a prominent modern writer in American literature. She was known as a skillful writer who created many pioneers of the western prairie in American literature canon. During the decades of writing, Cather was devoted to revealing the spirits of that age. Meanwhile, she also attached much importance to the technique and the style of the writing. In Cather's fiction, the omniscient narration and the limited narration are interwoven together and form a dual narration. There are two kinds of dual narration in Cather's fiction. From the angle of narration, this paper attempts to discuss the two kinds of the dual narration in her main works, discovering the pioneering significance of dual narration and further analyzing the cause of this conscious aesthetic choice. This paper falls into four parts.The first chapter analyzes one kind of the dual narration: the omniscient narration and the first person limited narration. And this chapter, divided into three sections, respectively elaborates the transgression and the transformation of the narrative perspective under the dual narration.The second chapter interprets another kind of the dual narration: the omniscient narration and the third person limited narration. Three aspects shall be discussed in this chapter separately, which are the third person limited narration, the narration transformation and the mutual transformation between the omniscient narration and third person limited narration.The third chapter expounds the pioneering significance of the dual narration to the narration art in Cather's fiction. Cather didn't obstinately persist in the omniscient narration of the 19th century traditional novels, nor did she blindly follow the limited narration of the 20th century modern novels. In her fiction, the omniscient narration and the limited narration are adopted and mingled together toform the perspective of the dual narration. Hence, the macro-narration epic and the dramatic inward observation are the two distinct characteristics of Cather's fiction. The two sections of this chapter analyze the innovation of the dual narration to the development of the art of fiction narration from the epic and dramatic aspects.The last chapter traces the causes of formation of the dual narration in Cather's fiction from the three aspects dividedly. There are three important factors relevant to the formation of the dual narration in her fiction. The first factor is the influence of her life experience. Then, the formation of culture tradition of the 19th century and the 20th century also affects the formation of Cather's dual narration. In addition to, the change of aesthetic inclination of fiction in the 20th century is another factor to the formation of the dual narration in Cather's fiction.