An Analysis of Lovesick Images in Letter from an Unknown Woman

Abstract

Letter from an Unknown Woman is a novella fully filled with emotion, which was created by Stefan Zweig, having a profound effect on world literature. It tells a story about the heroine’s whole life from the first person perspective, so many scholars tried to analyze this book from different angles, such as feminism, function of first person narration, psychological description with Freud psychoanalysis and so on. One of the features that make this novel so great is that the images in the text are used properly by Zweig.The research perspective of this paper is to analyze the functions of lovesick images. Through the results, readers can be clearer about the hints the author arranged and the effects of implication.

This paper consists of three parts. The first part is about the definitions of image and imagery. The second chapter detailedly analyzes the lovesick images in the novel and the hidden meanings behind. In chapter three, this paper is trying to analyze the images with more methods by applying some other theories like symbolism, semiotics and Iceberg Theory. But because of the complexity of the semiotics, the process for analyzing with the theory of semiotics is simplified so that readers can understand the connections between images and the hidden meanings more easily.

According to the analysis, readers can totally understand how much the heroine loves the writer. In addition, the relation between these two characters can be revealed. At the same time, readers can feel the changes in the heroine’s heart.

Key words: image; symbolism; semiotics; iceberg theory; implication