On The Narrative Features Of Out Of The Dust

Karen Hesse is one of the most important writers of American young adult literature. Inher young adult novel Out of the Dust, she tells a story set in the Oklahoma Panhandlebetween January1934and December1935, the period of the Great Depression. The heroineof the novel Out of the Dust is a13-year-old girl named Billie Jo, who suffered a lot duringthat period. The story is unique in its narrative aspects. First, the story is told in the firstperson point of view and based on internal focalization. Second, there are flashback andrecurrence in the narrative time. Third, there are also two other unique features in narrativestyle and structure, one is the novel is narrated in free verse style and the other is the novel isstructured in diaries.Based on the narrative theories on narrative point of view, narrative time and style, thisthesis primarily aims at a further study of these narrative features in this novel and the artisticeffects of these narrative features in the novel.This thesis falls into five parts. Part One gives a brief introduction to Karen Hesse andher novel Out of the Dust, and also summarizes the situation of current studies on the novel,the central argument of the thesis is put forward in this part. Also gives a brief introduction tonarrative.Chapter One deals with the definition of narrative point of view first, and points out thefeatures in narrative point of view and internal focalization in the novel Out of the Dust, andanalyzes the artistic effects of these two narrative features.Chapter Two mainly analyzes the feature of narrative time in the novel and also itsartistic effects in this novel.Chapter Three mainly analyzes narrative style and structure of the novel and their artisticeffects.The last part is conclusion, which reviews narrative point of view, narrative time andnarrative style and structure in narration of Out of the Dust, and additionally the significanceand value of this study are highlighted in this part.