A Narratological Reading Of And The Mountains Echoed

And the Mountains Echoed, the third novel by Afghan-American writer KhaledHosseini, comes after his first two novels The Kite Runner and A Thousand SplendidSuns. All the three books have become best sellers and are popular with readers fromall over the world. Since its publication in2013, And the Mountains Echoed hasdrawn extensive attention and received high praise. Hosseini shows his talent intelling stories and his masterful narrative skills in this novel.This thesis tries to analyze the narrative features of And the Mountains Echoed inthe light of Gerard Genette’s narrative theories from the perspectives of order,frequency, duration, focalization and discourse.In addition to the introduction and conclusion, the thesis consists of fivechapters.Chapter one analyzes the anachronous order in And the Mountains Echoed. Theflashbacks provide readers with more information about the causes of some eventsand make a big contrast between the past and the present. The flashforwards serve thefunctions of forecasting events, introducing characters and revealing secrets.Chapter two makes a study of the disparate frequency in And the MountainsEchoed. The iterative narrative ensures the conciseness of the text. The repeatednarrative about some events and details better presents different important themes ofthe novel.Chapter three discusses the unequal duration in And the Mountains Echoed. Thetechniques of summary, pause, scene and ellipsis are widely used to adjust thenarrative rhythm and convey different themes of the novel.Chapter four explores the multiple focalization in And the Mountains Echoed.The fixed internal focalization enables the inner world of the focal characters to befully exposed. The variable internal focalization helps the comprehensive shaping ofthe focal characters. The multiple internal focalization enables readers to understandthe diversity and ambiguity of the story.Chapter five researches the variable discourse in And the Mountains Echoed. The narrated discourse, indirect narrated discourse and dramatic narrated discourse play animportant role in regulating the distance between characters and readers andpresenting the inner thoughts and language features of the characters.A narratological reading of And the Mountains Echoed not only enables us tohave a good taste of the artistic features of the novel, but also to have a betterunderstanding of the profound themes Hosseini intends to convey in this novel.