| Jeanette Winterson (1959-) is a contemporary British writer and is renowned for her distinguished writing techniques and various postmodern concerns. Lighthousekeeping (2004), her eighth novel, is a postmodern fiction that has drawn much critical attention since its publication and the distinctive plot structure as well as its implications in this novel offer much to be discussed.In the light of affective narratology, and based on a close reading of the text, the thesis analyzes how emotion system is profoundly consequential for the way protagonists make decisions and affects their subsequent behaviors, maintaining that the plots literally move in response to the protagonists’ emotion systems. The distinct parallelism is further examined to indicate that there is a thematic relevance between the component plots and thereby the implication that love plays a crucial role in the pursuit of human happiness is revealed. By discussing the overall structure in which the subsidiary plot is transferred to the tale and is intersected into the prototypical main plot, the thesis holds that Winterson, as a writer, intends to demonstrate storytelling can help people to live better in this fast-changing world. |
