Exploring The Narrative Autonomy In Oates’ Rewrites

This thesis aims to explore Joyce Carol Oates’ s two rewritten short stories,“The Lady with the Pet Dog” and “The Dead”,in order to find out how Oates reverses the male narrative discourse and constructs her female narrative autonomy through the utilization of different narrative strategies.The major focus of the thesis will be the connections between the original works and the rewritten versions,namely the elements Oates maintains from the original works and the narrative strategies Oates applies in her rewrites to create her own versions of the stories.Meanwhile,the motivation,effect and legitimacy of her rewrites are as well the major concerns of the thesis.All is devoted to the exploration of the construction of Oates’ s narrative autonomy through rewrites.The thesis will be divided into five chapters to elaborate on the issue.The first Chapter will be the introduction of the thesis,including the brief introduction of the author and her works,literature review,the significance of the research,the layout of the thesis and so on.Chapter Two will attempt to clarify Oates’ s construction of narrative autonomy through reimaging the works of the great male masters’,mainly from the narrative devices applied in her revision,including the shift of focalization,the use of non-linear narration and the construction of narrative discourse.The following Chapter will be devoted to the discussion of the elements Oates appropriate from the original works and the reasons of her design.Chapter Four will further elaborate on the motivation,effects as well as legitimacy of Oates’ s rewrites.The last Chapter will be the conclusion of the thesis,il ustrating the findings of the thesis that Joyce Carol Oates has contrived to establish her narrative autonomy and find her artistic voice among the mainstream of literal tradition through the rewriting of the male master’s works.With the above discussion,the thesis clarifies how Joyce Carol Oates constructs her narrative autonomy through rewriting the works of great male masters,Chekhov and James Joyce.In other words,the major focus will as well be the exploration of how Oates as a woman writer has created independent stories which sharply distinguis hed from the two male masters’ and at the same time shows her concern over female experience as well.