A Research On The Power Writing In As I Lay Dying From The Perspective Of Spatial Narrative

As a representative of modernist novelists,William Faulkner was good at writing stream-of-consciousness novels.His masterpiece As I Lay Dying is the culmination of his stream of consciousness novels,with distinctive spatial characteristics in the writing structure.In addition,a lot of metaphors used in the novel also portray its connection with space power.Joseph Frank(1991)put forward the prototype of spatial narrative theory in the study of modern fiction as early as 1945.He believed that in modern literary creation,the“diachronism” of space had largely replaced the “synchronicity” of text.This was due to the fact that writers stopped concerning the flow of time in the literary works when they were creating novels and turned into focusing on space and higher-level text writing.Subsequently,Gabriel Zoran(1984)established the most practical spatial narrative model.With the development of postmodern theory,Michel Foucault(2007)further created the theory of space power on this basis,which was still very avant-garde in these days.Therefore,this thesis will explore the writing of space power in the dimension of space narrative in it.This thesis uses As I Lay Dying as the research subject.Spatial narrative theoretical model,which was proposed by Gabriel Zoran in Towards a Theory of Space in Narrative,and Foucault’s theory of space power will be used as frameworks,in order to answer the following questions.First of all,what are the features of spatial narrative in the novel.Secondly,what are the expressions of space power in the text.Finally,under the interpretation of spatial narrative and space power,what is the core appeal that the novel wants to express.After exploration of the narrative techniques,characters and plots in the aspects of spatial narrative and space power in the selected novel,this thesis draws the following important conclusions.First of all,text disintegration is an important spatial narrative feature.It is embodied in textual misplace,multiple narrative subjects and language incoherence in writing.Secondly,social space power control from era and economic background over basic social units is an important orientation for the behavior of characters in the reconstructed world.Finally,the novel persistently expresses the deconstruction to the old space power system and the pursuit of the establishment of a new order through the shaping of character behavior in the southern United States.In essence,it is the core appeal that this novel wants to express.This thesis explores the characteristics and symbolic meaning of spatial narrative in As I Lay Dying.On this basis,this thesis also interprets its power turn,which not only provides a new perspective for later scholars to study on this novel,but also gives a good research material for the theoretical study of spatial narrative and its power turn.