An Analysis of Catherine Earnshaw’s Choices in Wuthering Heights from the Perspective of Spatial Narrative_英语论文

摘要

《呼啸山庄》被誉为英国文学史上的一部奇书，是英国女作家艾米丽·勃朗特留给世人的一部优秀文学杰作。小说主人公凯瑟琳·恩肖以及她和希斯克利夫的爱情故事常常被学者探讨和解读。其中，小说中大量的时间叙述手法，象征手法，梦境的运用等都曾是研究者们青睐的研究角度。然而，国内外学者从空间叙事角度分析女主人公凯瑟琳·恩肖的作品甚少。空间叙事包括人的意识空间与叙事活动之间的复杂关系，它在小说刻画人物、阐述主题、组织结构等方面起着与时间叙事同等重要的作用。基于龙迪勇的现代小说空间叙事理论,本文从生存空间、社会空间和内心空间三个方面对凯瑟琳做了人物分析，旨在揭示小说中所应用的空间叙事的功能,并探讨小说中空间叙事是如何使用空间叙事来推动故事的发展和如何影响人物的动机。

关键词：空间叙事    凯瑟琳    生存空间    社会空间

Abstract

Wuthering Heights is an outstanding literary work written by British female writer Emily Bronte. It is one of the masterpieces of English literature in the 19th century. Catherine Earnshaw, the protagonist, and her love story with Heathcliff were often discussed and interpreted by researchers. In the novel, a large number of narrative techniques including time narrative, symbolization, and the use of dreams have been the research perspectives favored by researchers. However, few domestic and foreign scholars analyzed Catherine Earnshaw’s character from the perspective of spatial narrative. Spatial narrative includes the complex relationship between human space consciousness and narrative activities, which has equal importance with time narrative in depicting the characters, elaborating the theme, and organizing the structure. Based on the spatial narrative theory of novels from Long Diyong, the paper particularly makes a character analysis of Catherine in Wuthering Heights from three aspects—realistic living space, social space and inner space, hoping to represent the spatial narrative function implied in the novel and discuss how dose spatial narrative promote the development of story and influence character’s motivation.

Key words: spatial narrative   Catherine   living space   social space 

Contents

Chapter One  Introduction 1

1.1  A Brief Introduction to Emily Bronte.1

1.2  A brief Introduction to Wuthering Heights.1

1.3  Purpose of the Thesis2

1.4  Research Method of the Thesis.3

1.5  Structure of the Thesis3

Chapter Two  Literature Review4

2.1  Introduction.4

2.2  Previous Studies on Catherine Earnshaw4

2.2.1 Catherine’s Tragedy Analysis.4

2.2.2 Catherine’s Feminism Analysis5

2.3  Comments.5

Chapter Three  Theoretical Framework.7

3.1  Introduction.7

3.2  Theory of Spatial Narrative.7

3.3  Summary.8

Chapter Four  Spatial Narrative Analysis in Catherine’s choices9

4.1 The Representations of Catherin’s choices9

4.1.1 Choosing to Live in Thrushcross Grange9

4.1.2 Choosing to Marry Edgar Linton10

4.2 Space Analysis on Catherine from Three Aspects.11

4.2.1 Realistic Living Space.11

4.2.2 Social Space12

4.2.3 Inner Space14

Chapter Five  Conclusion15

5.1  Major Findings15

5.2  Limitation and Suggestions for Further Study16

Bibliography

Acknowledgements