Seeking Freedom Through Frames

On the back cover of The Ghost Writer,The Washington Post hails the novel “further evidence[s] that he [Philip Roth] can do practically anything with fiction.His narrative power — the ability to delight the reader simultaneously with the telling and the tale—is superb.” But when we read the novel we often feel bewildered by the disordered mass of texts.What does Roth do with this fiction? How can we enjoy his amusing narrative power?To clarify readers’ puzzlement,this thesis attempts to analyze the novel from the perspective of narrative frames.Enlightened by Mary Ann Caws’ Reading Frames in Modern Fiction,the author classifies the frames in novel into four groups: spatial frames,temporary frames,insertions and repetitions.While the first three frames cut the novel into parts and parcels,the postmodern technique of repetition bridges up the was textual gaps.Philip Roth experiments these narrative frames to find out his freedom of literary creation which only lies on the border of the frames,in the buildings and breakings of narrative frames.According to the classification of frames,this thesis divides into four parts.In the first chapter the author introduces the four main frames in the novels.Because the spatial frames are only used twice,it’s convenient to put this part within the first chapter.The second chapter deals with the temporary frames.By the analysis of the grammatical tenses and the mixture of the past memory and the future fantasy,this chapter endeavors to prove that Nathan’s reminiscence of his remote past and his fancies intervenes his narration.The third part focuses on the insertions and finds out that within these frames Roth enjoys unbounded freedom to seek literary meanings of his narrative but out of them there are always the restrictions of realities.The last chapter shows the use of repetitions in the novel.Roth not only repeats some images but also some lines form the pop music and a word to connect the pastiche of frames.