An Analysis Of Ship Of Fools From The Perspective Of Carnivalization

As one of the excellent women novelists in the 20^th century with a distinctive writing style,Katherine Anne Porter is well-known in modern literary circles for her popular short fictions.Her narrative skill is sophisticated and adroit;though characters she depicted are endowed with complex and changeable disposition,she still can handle and grasp their thoughts and psychological activities with keen and penetrating insight.Often in seemingly casual underplay she can naturally display finely the real incisive essence of life,people?s joys and sorrows.Ship of Fools,as her only full-length novel,which has consumed much of Porter?s time and energy in her old age,is characterized with great strength and deep insight.It reveals incisively and vividly the gloomy atmosphere and the lament of life?s impermanence,hits the nail on the head of human nature.It profoundly reveals the darkness of western capitalist society and alienation of interpersonal relationship since the 20^th century,which is extremely peculiar to her writing style.All of the characters mentioned above endow the whole novel with an epic temperament,show mankind?s bleak situation in the future,thus it has high artistic quality and great value for literary research.In Ship of Fools the narrative style is not really coherent,thus its plot is causal and loose,which has even caused some critics?blame.With the frequent change of narrators and narrative perspective,it gradually brings the readers into some kind of stream of consciousness,thus readers have to rely on themselves to find the true subject and meaning of this complex novel.So it is different from traditional novels and achieved the implementation of author?s disappearance,manifesting an obvious feature of psychological analysis and fable,and the moralizing tendency within is subtle and vague.Thus since its publishing,the foreign critics have paid much effort to analyze this novel,and they have really made a difference in the relevant researches;but compared with foreign literary upsurge for Porter?s research,our Chinese domestic scholars still haven?t paid enough attention to the rich historical cultural value and profound content of this unique work,therefore the following study on Ship of Fools still has a broad space for free exploration.In this brand new historical context,this thesis aims to probe this work?s special connotation in the perspective of Bakhtin?s carnival theory.Carnival theory was founded by Bakhtin and was carried forward to a great extent in the 19^thh century.It absorbs many merits of other contemporary literary theories,always keeps an eye on the current social situation,showing great vigor and courage to face the constant challenges and trials.Some of its important concepts,such as the carnival square,crowning and decrowning,grotesque realism,dialogue and polyphony theory?they all help a lot to achieve a more diversified interpretation about Ship of Fools,which is of great value for us to parse and appreciate its unique artistic charm more thoroughly and effectively.This thesis consists of three parts:introduction,main body and conclusion.The main contents are as follows:The first part is an introduction,which briefly introduces and reviews the research condition of Porter as well as Ship of Fools at home and abroad,highlighting this novel?s motif and its unique artistic charm,pointing out some research fruits,disadvantages in the current domestic research and the purpose of this thesis.The second part is the main body,which consists of three chapters:The first chapter mainly introduces the historical origin and social foundation of Carnival theory by Bakhtin,a great literary critic of the former Soviet Union,then briefly discusses the important value of carnival spirit.In the second chapter,based on the carnival theory,this section analyzes and interprets the profound theme of this novel.Firstly,taking the style of Menippean satire as the entry point to probe the purport of this novel,we will find it more efficient to analyze the weird and dark psychological state of passengers as well as the cold and tense interpersonal relationship.Secondly,the stark elements of slum naturalism could also be observed clearly from these carnival conflicts and chaos.Besides,Porter?s carnival-style sneer and bitter satire are alluded in the concrete racial discrimination,gender discrimination and the depravity of human nature.The third chapter analyzes and interprets the carnival features of the characterization.First the thesis adopts the typical“Crowning and Decrowning”skills in carnival literature to analyze the unique characters of Professor Hutten and La Condesa,then combines with the theory of Nietzsche’s Dionysian spirit and Apollo spirit to explain the ideological conflicts between a couple,Jenny and David.Thirdly the thesis uses the duality principle of carnival theory to parse the typical character,Mrs.Treadwell?s complex double personality,and proves the universality of duality among other passengers.The fourth chapter interprets the carnival features of the author’s narrative skills.First of all,the thesis discusses the conversational language and polyphonic narrative technique in the construction of Porter’s novels,then points out the unique artistic effects of this narrative technique.After that,the abundant applications of comic elements in the text are analyzed to highlight its distinctive expressiveness and infectious effect.The third part is the concluding part,which briefly discusses this novel?s particular position in the carnival literature and the long-standing folly literature,indicating its progressive tendency compared with the traditional folly novel.It?s pursuit of democracy,freedom,equality;it?s firm determination against discrimination,privilege and oppression;all these beliefs perfectly match the spirit of carnival literature.