摘要：William Faulkner has exerted tremendous influence on world literature. The Sound and the Fury (1929...William Faulkner has exerted tremendous influence on world literature. The Sound and the Fury (1929) is one of his most famous, and yet his most disputed, novels. As a result of his use of the polyphonic technique, the novel acquires a complexity in both style and meaning. Without an in-depth analysis of its polyphonic feature, it would be difficult to clarify its complex meaning.My thesis will employ Bakhtin’s theory of the polyphonic novel in study of The Sound and the Fury. It is my contention that the novel can be fruitfully interpreted in the Bakhtin’s framework of the polyphonic novel. In this light, we can see the polyphonic feature of the novel, as it is reflected in the image of the main characters, the comic-tragie-incidents, the complex relationships between the characters, and the indeterminacy of the value judgment.The thesis relies on textual analysis with recourse to Bakhtin’s theory. The theory roughly falls into three parts: the chronotope theory (or time-space theory), the carnival theory and the dialogue theory.The thesis consists of five parts. The first part is an introduction, research questions and methodology, etc. Many meanings are intrinsically shaped by a specific time-space. Dialogic relations are necessarily chronotopic. The second part will use the chronotope theory to examine the carnivalesque time-space, and discuss how special time-space environment make these narrators’ polyphonic dialogue with each other possible. The carnival collective is mainly composed of the clown, the fool, and the rouge. The carnival king is a character around whom all life is concentrated, and by whom all the other characters are colored with the carnivalistic features. Different narrators’ monologues, which involve dreams, insanity, and scandals, their dialogues become vehicles for 'internal dialogically' and a dialogic relationship to one’s self and thought, etc. The third part will employ the carnival theory to examine different carnival figures in the novel:Caddy, Benjy, Quentin, and Jason. These figures are either physically or spiritually distorted. In a carnivalesque environment, they find themselves in free and familiar contacts with one another. In the time-space world discussed in the former part, the extensive contradictions coexist among different narrators and among ideas in a single narrator. Only through an analysis of their different characters and fates can we understand why and how polyphonic dialogues among them take place in part 4. A dialogic sense of truth and a special position of the author are necessary for visualizing and conveying that sense of truth. The dialogic sense of truth manifests open-endedness by existing on the 'threshold' of several interacting consciousnesses, a 'plurality' of 'unmerged voices.' The fourth part is a discussion of the polyphonic feature of the novel: the dialogic interaction among different voices: great dialogue and the inner dialogue, the open-endedness of the novel. The dialogue theory will be used in this part. I will discuss polyphonic dialogues among narrators, the inner dialogue, and the open-endedness of the novel. Through this analysis, we can see how polyphony works in the novel. The final part summarizes the main points of the whole thesis. Based on the previous discussion, it locates this novel in the carnivalesque polyphonic novel, and it further expounds the significance of this feature.显示全部
摘要：华裔美国作家汤亭亭(Maxine Hong Kingston,1940—)的作品曾获多项大奖,且影响深远。《女勇士》(The Woman ...华裔美国作家汤亭亭(Maxine Hong Kingston,1940—)的作品曾获多项大奖,且影响深远。《女勇士》(The Woman Warrior:Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts,1976)、《中国佬》(China Men,1980)、《孙行者》(Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book,1989)这三部小说体现了当代美国华裔少数民族在现实生活中对身份认同的困惑感和诉求方式。中国传统文化、美国新文化、美国华裔文化三重文化的叠合充分展现了华人的文化身份特点。对自我的认同首先来自于自我定位,即“我是谁”,这一定位很大程度上取决于个人的参照物。美籍华人身处白人与华人两个世界,形成了三重文化叠合的自我观照。汤亭亭的创作对三种文化进行杂糅,创造出具有三重文化背景的华人形象,表现出汤亭亭身上三重叠合的文化身份认同。本文分为五章,第一章以“白人社会之中的自我观照”为中心,阐释小说的华人在孤独和排斥的世界形成的自我观照。第二章以“华人社会之中的自我观照”为中心,讨论华人在代沟和文化差异面前形成的自我观照。以上两章阐述作者在多种文化观照下确立的三重叠合文化身份。第三章以“跨文化书写”为中心,讨论作者通过重构情节和人物形象,颠覆“东—西”二元对立,体现了其文化叠合性,也说明对三重文化资源的使用是其建构文化叠合身份的策略之一。第四章以“经验书写”为中心,讨论作者以口语化叙事来书写经验、重建华人历史,使华人融入美国历史,是其建构文化叠合身份的策略之二。以上两章是作者建构华人中、美、美国华裔三重文化叠合身份的书写策略。第五章总结汤亭亭创作的现实意义。显示全部
