A Study On The Narrative Techniques In Mrs. Henry Wood’s East Lynne

The “sensation novel” was a genre of fiction which was widely popularized inEngland in the1860s. This kind of novel particularly consists of various topics likeadultery, bigamy, bastard and other topics that were very popular at that time.Mrs. Henry Wood was one of the most famous sensation novelists. Her masterwork, East Lynne, stirred the whole society just after being published, which was alsoadapted to films and adopted as play for several times. Her work has come into thecenter of academic attention and has been thoroughly analyzed from variousperspectives like cultural appreciation, feminist interpretation and Marxismperspective. Narrative techniques play a very important role in novel creating. Sinceits specific narrative techniques contribute to its artistic achievements, this paperattempts to conduct the analysis from the perspective of narratology.Targeting at the appreciation of East Lynne’s mysterious and suspenseful effect,the principles of narratology, especially the author’s application of narrative plotstructure and time, the choice of narrator and focalization will been generalized. Thisthesis generalizes methodology of narrative techniques in East Lynne mainly bytaking Professor Zhao Yiheng and French influential critic Gerard Genette’s views asa major framework.This paper deals with the following six aspects. Following the brief introductionof Mrs. Henry Wood and East Lynne as well as the literature review on the novel fromseveral aspects, including the perspective of culturism, feminism and Marxism, thenarrative theories will be adopted in this paper.Chapter One according to narrative plot structure, presents Mrs. Henry Wood’schoices of narrative plot structure including the main plot and sub plot and its functionto achieve mysterious and suspense effect.In Chapter Two, the focus moves on to her delicate application of narrative timeorder and duration. The author uses narrative prolepsis, scene, summary and ellipsisto achieve mysterious and suspense effect.The third chapter analyzes her artistic treatment of narrators containingheterodiegetic narrator and homodiegetic narrator shown in the novel and expatiatesfunction to achieve mysterious and suspense effect.However next chapter highlights the author’s choice of focalization includingzero focalization, internal focalization, multiple focalization and variable focalizationas well as their functions to accomplish mysterious and suspense effect. The last chapter comes to the conclusion that the mysterious and suspense effects are achievedby the specific narration techniques.Through the analysis of the narrative techniques of East Lynne in terms ofnarrative structure, time, narrator and focalization, the thesis comes to the conclusionthat it is the utilization of these narrative techniques by Mrs. Henry Wood that cancontribute to the enhancement of the creation of mysterious atmosphere and suffusivesuspense effect.