A Mental Space Study On The Corn Maiden And Other Nightmares Of Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates has been active in the American literary world since the publication of her first collection of short stories,By the North Gate,in 1963.Today,Oates has already achieved an important position in the American literary world,with her works winning numerous awards for her.She herself has been considered a popular writer who is expected to win the Nobel Prize in literature for several consecutive years.Oates is known for her prolificacy.The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares is a collection of novels released in Oates’ s later writing period,which includes seven short stories she wrote from 1996 to 2011.In this novel collection,Oates inherits her consistent style of psychological realism,focusing on the characters’ psychology with exquisite and concise way.This paper takes the mental world of characters frequently depicted by Oates in novels as the research object,using Gilles Fauconnier’s mental space theory as the theoretical basis,and combining text analysis,expounds the types and methods of Oates’ construction of mental space,and analyzes the impact of mental space on textual narrative techniques and the role of thematic disclosure.This paper consists of an introduction,three chapters and a conclusion.The introduction is divided into three sections.The first section introduces Oates and his works,mainly a brief introduction and summary of Oates herself,her creative experience and characteristics.The second section is a literature review on Oates,which mainly discusses the domestic and foreign research on Oates herself and her works.The third section introduces Gilles Fauconnier’s theory of mental space,and expounds the practical possibility of combining this theory with the theme of this paper.The main body of the paper includes three chapters.The first chapter introduces the types of mental space presented in the novel.Due to the fact that the mental space network presented in the text is essentially the psychological process of a character,the mental space of a character can be roughly divided into three categories: cognitive space,emotional space,and will space based on the different stages of human psychological process.Cognitive space presents a personalized characteristic in the novel collection,and Oates mainly demonstrates the differences between children and adults and the differences between adults to the readers.The emotional space is dominated by negative emotions,which are mostly manifested as complex emotions.Among them,Oates pays particular attention to writing the complex emotions of the contradictory characters.In the novel,the will space is expressed as the inflated individual will of each character.In terms of specific application,the different expressions of various mental spaces are an important way for Oates to portray the image of characters,and also have a significant role in revealing the theme of the text.The second chapter mainly analyzes the construction,connection,and transformation of mental space in the novel.Firstly,the novel constructs mental space through space builder and dialogue.There is no absolute limit between these two methods,and Oates often uses them together.Secondly,on the basis of following the basic relationship of mental space,Oates mainly uses two forms of juxtaposition and nesting to combine mental space.Finally,Oates flexibly utilizes the tenses and mood,allowing the mental space of the characters to freely transform in different time and epistemic distances,thereby demonstrating the dynamic nature of the characters’ inner activities.The third chapter discusses the impact of the construction of mental space on the narrative skills and theme presentation of the work.In order to better construct the mental space of the novel,the narrative perspective is reflected in the use of an internal focus narrative perspective that is not limited by the person,while the narrative time is reflected in time reversal and changes in time distance.In the theme expression of the novel,the construction of mental space is closely related to the theme of violence in the novel.Oates pays attention to the survival state of the characters under violent injuries.By depicting the inner world of the characters,she confronts various existing social problems in American society,narrates the unspeakable pain and various selfish desires in modern life,and demonstrates the complexity of human nature.The last part is the conclusion.Summarize the use of mental space to help understand the creative skills of Oates’ novels,and elaborate on the uniqueness it adds to the works,in order to demonstrate the profound impact of Oates’ works.