Narrative Progression In Beloved From The Perspective Of Mindreading

According to James Phelan,the narrative progression is generated by textual dynamics and readerly dynamics.Textual dynamics refer to the internal processes by which narratives move from beginning through the middle to end.The textual dynamics are a synthesis of plot dynamics and narratorial dynamics.The plot dynamics develop through patterns of instability-complication-resolution.Narratorial dynamics consist of narrative patterns,such as the unreliable narration.The readerly dynamics are the cognitive,affective,ethical and aesthetic responses to the textual dynamics.The bridge between textual dynamics and readerly dynamics consists of interpretive,ethical and aesthetic judgments of readers.Mindreading is the ability to understand the mental states of others from their external representations.With the help of mindreading,the instabilities among characters in the story level can be analyzed in a clearer way,reflecting how the conflicts among characters come into being and get solved in terms of human cognition.In addition,the narrators design their narrative strategies based on their mindreading for the authorial audiences and the scattering narrative gaps in Beloved constitute the narratorial dynamics.In the end,the readerly dynamics,that is to say,the narrative judgments of the targeted audience about the ambiguities in the textual dynamics are expounded as a part of readers' mindreading.First of all,this thesis introduces the great potential of cognitive science when it is applied in literary criticism,the schools of mindreading,and the definition,development,and criticism of narrative progression as part of James Phelan's rhetorical theory of narrative.The following chapter demonstrates how the mindreading of major characters leads to and resolves the instabilities in the story level and the operation and dysfunction of social mind on the levels of family and community.In addition,the narrators utilize their mindreading for the authorial audience to set the narrative gaps of Beloved's mind and Sethe's infanticide.Narrative gaps refer to the delay of key information in the narrative.The narrators apply the narrative gaps to hide the truth and the narrative ethics,giving full play to the readers' judgments.Whether the tensions caused by the narrative gaps are solved or not determines part of narrative progression.The readerly dynamics result from the audience's narrative judgments of three ambiguities,namely the ambiguity of Beloved's identity,the ambiguity of color terms and the ambiguity of Morrison's ethical standing in terms of the infanticide of Sethe/ Margaret.The mindreading of the actual audience for the author plays a central role in the interpretive,ethical,and aesthetic judgments of the textual dynamics.Considering the combination of textual hints and narrative strategies,the readers mainly utilize inference and memory-processing mechanism to make judgments and interpretations.Consequently,the readerly dynamics share some common ground and show individuality at the same time.In this novel,Morrison does not just construct the textual dynamics because of her deep insight into human cognition but also invites the readers to make full use of their cognitive capability to interpret the novel,completing the narrative progression in terms of readerly dynamics.Ultimately,the novel is endowed with understandings of more dimensions.