Susan S. Lancer's Theoretical Research On Narrative Voice

Feminist narratology is one of the important schools of post classical narratology,which has a history of more than 30 years and is still developing vigorously with a strong momentum.As the founder of feminist narratology,Susan S.Lanser's theoretical construction and development highlight the development characteristics and direction of feminist narratology.With narrative voice as a breakthrough,Lanser creatively proposed to combine feminist literary criticism with structuralist narratology,so that feminist research and narratology can be reborn.Since the beginning of this century,feminist narratology has been introduced into China.As the founder and representative figure,Lanser's theory has been mainly introduced.However,the current research scope in China mainly centers at the introduction and put in order the theory,or directly uses Lanser's feminist narratology to analyze China's narrative works,lacking of specific analysis and comprehensive research on Lanser's theory.Lanser's narrative voice theory is the heart substance of her construction of feminist narratology,from which we can grasp the historical track of feminist narratology from theoretical creation,growth to mature development,and analyze the theoretical connotation and research field of feminist narratology,Therefore,it is necessary to focus on the introduction and analysis of feminist narratology.This paper attempts to make an all-round and deep-going analysis of the kernel theory of feminist narratology,namely,the narrative voice theory of Lanser.Lanser's theory of narrative voice has four main values:(1)providing theoretical tools for feminist literary criticism full of political significance;(2)expanding the interpretive context for narratology theory and making narratology theory glow with new vitality;(3)while reflecting on feminist literary criticism and narratology theory,she constantly reflects on her own theory,criticizing the gender pattern of binary opposition,and putting forward diversified theoretical development direction;(4)pushing forward the link of feminist literary criticism and narratology theory from both theory and practice..On the basis of previous studies,we should not only grasp the development of Lanser's theory,but also grasp and study its key concepts.To explore the significance of "voice" to Lanser's theory and to show its dynamic development.It tries to provide a new perspective for Chinese narratology and feminist literary criticism.This paper is divided into four chapters.The first chapter mainly analyzes the cause why Lanser chose to use narrative voice to fit together feminist literary criticism and narratology.From the political significance and theoretical development trend of "voice" research in feminist literary criticism,we can see the integration of narrative voice in feminist narratology with the complementary "voice" of feminist literary criticism and narratology coincides with the contextualized development tendency of the study of "voice" in narratology.The second chapter of the thesis analyzes the interpretation strategy of Lanser's narrative sound theory.Lanser analyzes the narrative voice from the perspective of gender,found the phenomenon of gender restriction in the narrative voice,and thinks that there was Polyphony structure in the female narrative voice.By constructing three narrative voice models,Lanser reveals that female narrators are in a weak position in the narrative authoritativeness,and probes the construction of narrative authority that truly belongs to female voice.The third chapter focuses on the diversified development of Lanser's narrative sound theory.By introducing queer theory,Lanser breaks the preset gender binary opposition and pays more attention to the expression of gender.In addition,the “intersectionality” theory is introduced to eliminate the generality of presupposed narrative voice,and changed from the former deductive method to the combination of deduction and induction.Therefore,Lanser steadily perfects the theory,amplifies the study field of vision and practicalness of the theory.The fourth chapter of the thesis analyzes the contribution,inspiration and limitation of Lanser's narrative voice theory.This paper approves the contribution of Lanser's narrative voice theory to the development of feminist literary criticism and narratology,explores its advantages in the light of national conditions,dialectically analyzes the shortcomings of Lanser's theory,and objectively summarizes its theoretical value.