Study On The Graphic Narrative Of John Banville’s The Sea

John Banville (1945—) is the famous contemporary Ireland novelist, literary critic and dramatist and the most important experimental novelist following Joyce and Beckett of Ireland, who has been praised as "one of the best writers of Ireland in both 20th and 21th century". Since he started writing Banville had finished so many works and whose novels are famous for their excellent writing skills, fresh and beautiful language, various themes and profound connotation. As Banville’s master woke The Sea represents the peak of writing of him in both ideological level and artistry. As Banville loves painting so much that we can often see the trace of painting in his novels. So, we can say that painting has constituted the important contents even the theme of Banville’s novels.While following the usual writing styles in The Sea, Banville implements the principle of the blend of literature and painting more deeply with bringing the painterly elements in the novel all-aroundly, which not only serves the whole narrating of the novel but also reflects the unique poetic thought of Banville that provides a powerful reference for us to understand the relationship between literature and painting. This thesis chooses The Sea as the main research object and starts with the relationship between literature and painting to discuss the graphic narrative of the novel through the methods comparative literary criticism, spatial criticism, and psychological criticism to grasp the characteristic of the art of painting of the novel more profoundly and pry into the poetic thought of the efforts to fuse literature with painting of Banville. This thesis is divided into four chapters.The first chapter mainly analyzes the psychological metaphorical functions of the space and composition through the methods of spatial criticism. Firstly, Banville uses Bonnard’s spatial composition, inverted triangle composition, scenography and blankness to reflect the mental world of the protagonist in different situations. Secondly, analyze the identity difference of the characters and the theme of memory and grief of the novel through different concatenate spaces of family space, social space and hodiernal and the past space to imply. Lastly, reveal the rich symbolic meaning of the sea and the theme of loss and self-quest of the novel through the description of the natural space, dreamful space and holy space.The second chapter mainly starts with the symbolic meaning of colors and lights to analyzes the important functions of reflecting the character’s mentality and implying the novel’s theme of them. Firstly, Banville interprets the mental metaphorical functions of colors through repeated rendering of the same color, contrasting of blight and dark hue and cold and warm hue. Then, reflect the complex mentality of the characters and the theme of time passing of the novel through natural lights and living lights.The third chapter mainly analyzes the constructive functions of painting in moulding characters and implying the theme through the statuary art and the theory of ekphasis.Firstly, analyze the contrast between the construction of the artistic image and the self-persuit of the protagonist through the conflict between the artistic personality and mediocre intelligence, the difference between the imaginary figure and the real figure,the isomorphism of the self-image to reveal the theme of identity puzzling and self-persuit. Secondly, the quote of the three painters of Bonnard, Watteau and van Gogh both conveys the author’s poetic thought and serves the novel’s narrating that reflects the bottom color of painterly. Thirdly, analyze the statuary beauty of the female roles, the mentality of the male roles and the function of artistic interspersing of the work of Bonnard.The forth chapter mainly analyzes the functions, the reasons and significances of the graphic narrative. Firstly, there are three functions including enhancing the artistic dotting, deeping into the mentality of the characters and implying the thematic meaning.Secondly, the reasons why Banville uses so many painterly elements are his love for painting, the edifying of the beautiful natural scenery of Ireland and the influence of"chart-reading time". Lastly,the significances are that the using of painterly elements helps Banville to reach his dream of witnessing the life,his romantic quest and his efforts to break through the limitation of language.The conclusion part points out that although the relationship between literature and painting has always been in controversy in the history of Chinese and western literary theory they have reached fusion in modern and post-modern literature and had become an important narrative skill of modern and post-modern writers. On the basis of following the tradition of poem-and-painting literature of the previous writers Banville innovates boldly who not only brings his novels with full-bodied pictorially beauty but also places the art of painting on the time line of literary narrating that constitutes the inner texture of the novel. In a word, Banville makes great efforts to excavate the literary narrative functions of painting to reach the blend of literary and painting all-roundly.