An Analysis Of Narrative Time In Saturday

Ian McEwan, one of the most outstanding writers in contemporary British literary arena, has written manyinfluential works. His works concern about such hot social issues as religion, war, terrorism, climate change andso on. Most of them have a strong moral sense and unique narrative style. His ninth novel, Saturday, which waspublished in2005, won him the James Tait Black prize in the same year. It is one of the earliest novels focusingon people’s life after9/11. The delicate arrangement of time makes this novel a quintessential case of discourseanalysis. In the light of Genette’s theory of narrative time in Narrative Discourse, this thesis analyzes the art ofnarrative time in Saturday from the perspectives of order, duration and frequency, and gropes into theinterrelation of themes and art of time. Excluding introduction and conclusion, this thesis is divided into fourchapters.The introduction mainly deals with Ian McEwan and his work Saturday, summarizespredecessors’ research results and states the academic value and structure of this thesis.Chapter One focuses on the theoretical framework of the thesis. First, the thesis combs the development ofnarratology in the world and its reception and development in China. Then, Genette’s theory of narrative time isdiscussed briefly.Chapter Two concerns the narrative order in Saturday. The protagonist’s retrospections and anticipationsdisrupt the linear time formed by his schedule during that day, while the kernel plot moves forward in itsdiachronic order in general. Partial analepses are the reflection of Henry’s fragmentary memories of the past.They not only reflect the way Henry thinks, but also connect the narrative NOW with the past. Prolepsis expandsthe spatial scope of the novel to the future, and shows the novel’s function of prediction.Chapter Three deals with the narrative duration in Saturday. Through the variation of narrative duration,time is prolonged, compressed and omitted in Saturday. Scenes and stretches are used in bulk to show Henry’sfrequent mental activities. They express his uneasy inner state and moral dilemmas he faced on Saturday.Besides, the rich descriptive pauses of London streets in the novel have been absorbed into narration. They showus the condition of postmodern world in the context of9/11attacks.Chapter Four starts from narrative frequency. The singulative narrative shows the distortion of the truth inmedia era and its side-effect. The repeating narrative in the novel makes full use of the aesthetic effect ofrepetition. The repeated narration of the car accident shows Henry’s moral reflection after it. And the repeatedretrospections of the moment of their falling love resonate with the theme of the novel. Iterative narrative is used to express the events happened regularly, such as his mother’s life habits and his father-in-law’s love affairs, etc.To sum up, through the arrangement of narrative time, McEwan sets Henry in the web of socialrelationships with alternated prolepses and analepses. Reaching deep into the mind of Henry, he narrates histurbulent Saturday in the anxious atmosphere formed by repetition with a slow rhythm. The novel shows us theinner anxiety and moral dilemmas people faced after the9/11. It also emphasizes the role that love and familycan play in countering irrational forces. McEwan connects Henry’s individual experience with human conflictsand confusions shared by all human beings. To some extent, his Saturday is an epitome of our age. This narrativestyle is also a reflection of the writer’s sense of responsibility and the carrier of his ethical orientation.