（英语语言文学专业论文）穿越时光的隧道——伍尔夫意识流作品中的叙事时间研究.pdf

ii 摘 要 本文通过对伍尔夫的三部意识流作品 墙上的斑点1 9 1 9达罗卫夫人 1 9 2 5 及到灯塔去1 9 2 7 中时间结构的具体剖析阐述了伍尔夫作品独具匠 心的叙事时间揭示了其叙事时间的总体特征及伍尔夫在小说叙事时间上的改革与 创新时间是小说中的一个主要组成部分同情节和人物具有同样重要的价值传 统或常规的小说中叙事时间主要呈线形发展而伍尔夫意识流作品中的叙事时间 则表现出复杂性即非线形发展特征伍尔夫突破物理时间定向稳速流逝的规则 将心理时间引入叙事充分展示了其叙事时间在结构布局上无限的扩展性和巨大的 凝聚力伍尔夫对叙事时间的处理成为其表现内容展示主题的主要手段它使作 品具有更深刻的内涵和强烈的艺术效果 全文共分三章 第一章简述了意识流小说的哲学心理学理论基础及意识流小说的发展指出 意识流文学这种特殊体裁的出现必然要求与之相适应的叙事时间 第二章具体阐述了伍尔夫三部意识流作品中的叙事时间结构 第三章探讨了伍尔夫在叙事时间领域对现代主义文学所作的贡献 在结论部分本文认为伍尔夫的意识流小说之所以能在现代文坛独树一帜 其重要原因在于她大胆摆脱了传统小说以钟表时间为顺序的线形结构赋予了叙 事时间新的内涵与形式从而成功组建了全新的时间秩序 关键词 意识流小说 叙事时间 心理时间 非线形发展 iii iii abstract this thesis is a discussion on the narrative time in woolf s fiction of stream of consciousness through a careful analysis of the time structure in the mark on the wall 1919 mrs dalloway 1925 and to the lighthouse 1927 it expounds the exquisite narrative time of woolf s fiction and reveals its general feature and woolf s innovation in the arrangement of time in the novel being one of the principle elements of novels time is valued as important as plot and character in traditional novels the narrative time mainly develops in linear sequence however woolf s fiction unfolds its complexity and characterizes itself by the non linear development of the narrative time breaking through the confinements of the chronological sequence of physical time woolf adopts psychological time in the narration which fully reflects the infinite expansibility and massive cohesive force of narrative time woolf s handling of time is a way to present the theme and content of the novel which makes the novel highly effective and connotative this thesis is divided into three chapters chapter one deals with the philosophical and psychological basis and briefly accounts the development of the stream of consciousness novel whose appearance demands the new expressive way of narrative time chapter two elaborates the narrative time of woolf s three representative works chapter three dwells on woolf s contribution to narrative time in modern fiction the thesis concludes that the principle reason why woolf s fiction remains distinctive in the modern literature is that she boldly breaks freely from traditional linear structure based on the chronological sequence of clock time endowing new connotation and forms to narrative time thereby successfully sets up a brand new order of narrative time key words the stream of consciousness novel narrative time psychological time non linear development passing through the tunnel of time 1 introduction virginia woolf a distinguished female writer is regarded as one of the literary giants in the history of english literature of the 20th century woolf is well known for her standing out against the conventional techniques in producing fiction as an exponent of the stream of consciousness novelists she writes novels according to her own standards which are not only large in quantity but also special in quality her novels have instructed and enchanted as well as confused and pained many scholars and readers and they are still fascinated by her modern ideas and innovations in the form of the novel virginia woolf is a great pioneer and innovator in the field of modern fiction however studies on virginia woolf in the west didn t become popular until the late thirties of the 20th century from woolf s death in 1941 to the middle of 1970 few monographs appeared in the west to comment woolf and her works in the middle of 1970s the research on woolf reached its climax during this period different critics groups including psycho biographic feminist psychology and philosophy analysis theorists marxist and modernist studied woolf and her works from different perspectives in 1972 quentin bell published virginia woolf a biography in which bell collected a great deal of private materials about her that had never been published before and the publication of woolf s biography evoked a climax of studies upon her in 1976 woolf s essays recollecting her childhood and teen age years were collected in moments of being in 1990 mitchell leaska edited and published woolf s diaries from 1897 1907 and her essay collective a passionate apprentice in 1992 john mepham made a sum up about the comments on woolf in his criticism in focusvirginia woolf psycho biographical critics put their focus of the studies on the position of woolf s works in her life among those research works lyndall gordon s virginia woolf a writer s life stands out in his works gordon summarized woolf s whole life providing important materials to the research of woolf besides there are another four works which also enjoy the high reputation they are john mepham s virginia woolf a 河北大学英语语言文学硕士学位论文 2 literary life roger poole s the unknown virginia woolf 1978 mark spilka s virginia woolf s quarrel with grieving 1980 and louise desalvo s virginia woolf the impact of childhood sextual abuse on her life and work 1989 feminist critics pay much attention to woolf s feminist thought and analyze woolf s works from feminist perspective nancy topping bazin argued in her famous works virginia woolf and androgynous vision 1973 that the androgynous theory was the key to comprehend woolf s fiction in her towards androgyny carolyn heilbrum thought that human beings should enter a society in which there were no social gender patterns american feminist critic elaine showalter held a negative attitude towards woolf s feminist thought she held the view that the reason why woolf needed a room of her own lay in the fact that woolf lacked a sense of safety as a woman this room showalter believed was rather a prison than a sacred palace the research of psychological school on woolf emphasizes freud and claine s influence on her and her works by exploring woolf s a room of one s own and three guineas e abel drew such a conclusion in her work virginia woolf and the fiction of psychoanalysis 1989 in 1920s woolf paid a tribute to metronymic origin of culture while in 1930s as a daughter she identified with the well educated father philosophical analysts believe that readers should find out the philosophical thought of woolf s works through the surface in his virginia woolf and her works 1965 jean guiguet argued that woolf s works were the philosophical explorations about self life art and reality and in howard harper s between and silence the novels of virginia woolf 1982 he held the opinion that what woolf sought was meaning marxist critics also make a careful research on woolf in which woolf s class attitude is discussed in 1932 william empson published his article entitled mrs dalloway as a political satire expressing his opinion that woolf held a sympathetic attitude both dominant class and its critics in 1970 terry eagleton further developed this opinion in his exiles and egigres studies in modern literature eagleton considered that it was impossible for woolf to hold a sharp cut critical attitude towards social problems since she realized the existence of class problems and had her spiritual pursuit as a high class noble passing through the tunnel of time 3 critics on modernist literature regard woolf as one of the most important modernist writers in english literature their research on woolf focuses on her writing techniques stream of consciousness symbols and so on in addition some critics specialize in the studies of woolf s writing technique and forms such as jane wheare s virginia woolf dramatic novelist 1989 and stella mcnichol s virginia woolf and the poetry of fiction 1990 in china the woolf studies started comparatively late it was in 1980s that the research on woolf reached an upsurge some essays and translated works appeared as well as monographs in 1988 and 1999 qu shijing a distinguished scholar whose function and influence in the field of the woolf studies cannot be neglected translated some of woolf s critical essays and edited them into two books a study on virginia woolf and virginia woolf s critical essays and in 1989 qu shijing published his monograph virginia woolf the novelist of stream of consciousness in which he introduced woolf s writing technique the stream of consciousness and analyzed its application in some of her works the books he published not only provide a detailed illustration about woolf s life thought and writing but also introduce to the researchers in china the basic condition and latest achievements of the woolf studies in the west thus qu shijing establishes a good foundation for the later research since then woolf s literary position as a famous novelist of stream of consciousness was placed in china in 1990 li naikun selected some of woolf s critical essays short stories and parts of novels and edited them into the book virginia woolf s selective works in 1994 liu bingshan translated some of woolf s essays and edited them into a bookbooks and portraits in 1996 li weiping published his monograph the stream of consciousness novel and later in 1998 he published another monograph a survey of english and american modernist literature in his works li weiping discussed woolf s creative thought and artistic techniques and made a careful analysis of the representative fiction of woolf although there are numerous study guides with key to unlocking various doors of the mysterious temple of virginia woolf it is far from adequacy comparing with woolf s status and influence in the literary world of the huge yearly mass of scholarly research not much has touched upon the subject of narrative time in woolf s fiction some of it 河北大学英语语言文学硕士学位论文 4 only provides a rather brief and sketchy introduction in the field of the narrative time of woolf s fiction there is still much space left for the further research therefore it is necessary to make a careful study of narrative time in woolf s works by choosing her three distinctive works as the object of analysis thereby a thorough comprehension of woolf s fiction of stream of consciousness and a better understanding of the arrangement of narrative time in modern fiction can be obtained this thesis mainly discusses the narrative time of woolf s fiction on the basis of her three representative works the mark on the wall mrs dalloway and to the lighthouse the narrative time in the mark on the wall stands out with the moment of importance in the narration the apparent track of the clock time is reduced to the minimum and the narrative time in which the psychological time is applied and emphasized arises to meet the need of the style and the theme of the fiction in the mark on the wall the whole moment of perception lasts but a few minutes however it covers a rich spiritual world of the character mrs dalloway is characterized by one day narrative which is successfully employed to reveal the lifetime of the character in the novel woolf skillfully combines psychological time with clock time represented by big ben setting up a solid framework of narrative time in which the complex life experience of all the characters is displayed within 15 hours to the lighthouse covering a chronological span of ten years is based on the tripartite structure with three parts of notably unbalanced length the framework of the narrative time in to the lighthouse is placed in unusual order the first part dealing with one evening and the last part the morning with the lapse of ten years placed in between in the novel three kinds of time historic time clock time and psychological time are manipulated in a totally different way through a careful analysis of the time structure in woolf s three representative works the general feature of the narrative time in woolf s fiction is clearly unfolded passing through the tunnel of time 5 chapter one a survey of the stream of consciousness novel 1 1 the philosophical and psychological basis of the stream of consciousness novel the stream of consciousness novel as an experiment and a revolt against the traditional forms turns a new leaf in the history of world s literature it is by no means an isolated and spontaneous literary form it has a reliable and solid foundation of philosophy and psychology in a sense those experimental novelists like virginia woolf own much to the ideas and theories of william james 18421910 sigmund freud 1856 1939 and henri bergson 18591941 the advancement of modern psychology has been great shaping forces of the stream of consciousness novel it provides new impetuses and new forces of interest for the novelists in their creative writing the term stream of consciousness was not used first in a work of literature it is william james a famous american psychologist who should be responsible for the metaphorical coinage stream of consciousness the term was first defined by james in his the principles of psychology to indicate the flow of inner experience with each personal consciousness thought is sensibly continuous consciousness then does not appear to itself chopped up in bits such words as chain or train do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance it is nothing jointed it flows a river or a stream aresic the metaphors by which it is most naturally described in talking of it hereafter let us call it the stream of thought of consciousness or of subjective life 1 william james coins the stream metaphor to indicate stream like nature of the consciousness the consciousness is not chopped up in bits but flows it emphasizes the nature of consciousness it is personal continuous forward moving and in constant change consciousness appearing to one not as a chain but as a stream a flow indicates the entire area of mental attention that brings springs of inspirations to modern writers 河北大学英语语言文学硕士学位论文 6 james thinks that in the mind of an individual at a given moment a stream of consciousness is a mixture of all the levels of awareness associations and reflections james comparison of human consciousness to the bird s life is very descriptive to the understanding of the mode of human thinking he wrote in an article entitled on some omissions of introspective psychology as we take in fact a general view of the wonderful stream of our consciousness what strikes us first is this different pace of its parts like a bird s life it seems to be made of an alternation of flight and perchings let us call the resting places the substantive parts and the places of flight the transitive parts of the stream of thought 2 in james mind people s stream of consciousness seems to be made of an alternation of flights and perchings the parts of perchings include the thoughts which have been long buried in people s minds while the parts of flights belong to those evanescent drifting sensations impressions and flickering thoughts the resting places of stream of consciousness are called by james substantive parts while the places of flight are called transitive parts the transitive parts generally refers to the psychic activity and the flow of consciousness which are complex constantly changing and illogical this is what the stream of consciousness writers attempt to describe in their works william james probably had no idea that his theory would have such a ready application to literature but readers may conceive that his theoretic basis is a formidable weapon in the hands of the avant garde at the turn of the 20th century besides william james another important figure whose theories are readily applicable to the stream of consciousness novel is the austrian neurologist and psychologist sigmund freud freud exerts a profound influence on western views of human motives and the mental process conscious preconscious and unconscious which can be vividly embodied by the coincidental area of an iceberg the conscious is compared to the small part of the iceberg above water the preconscious is equivalent to the water line that fluctuates according to the sea s motion the unconscious is the large mass hidden below water freud ignores the problems of consciousness and directs his efforts to an understanding and description of what he terms the unconscious there were active parts of the mind not immediately open to inspection either by an onlooker or passing through the tunnel of time 7 by the subject himself 3 and these parts of the mind are described by freud as the unconscious freud sees dreams as the central window to the unconscious and regards it as the real psyche freud s notion about the unconscious destroys the conventional authority set up by the directed thinking of the conscious mind and offers important guidance to the stream of consciousness novel freudian theory also holds that personality is made of three major systems the id the ego the superego he believes that the id consists of the biological drives whereas the superego is comprised of the ethical and moral principles which have a significant reason attempts to reconcile these conflicting forces freud persistently holds the view that there are hidden layers of the mind which affect human conduct in one way or another freud s psychological theory is generally accepted by modern novelists and has exerted a tremendous influence on the production of works of art his contribution to the rise and development of the stream of consciousness novel is invaluable d h lawrence says long ago we watched in frightened anticipation when freud set out on his adventure into the hinterland of human consciousness he was seeking for the unknown sources of the mysterious stream of consciousness 4 the stream of consciousness novel having an important concern with the area of consciousness with which freud deals in his psychological works naturally fell victim to the surge of freudian popularity it might not be an exaggeration to say that one can hardly apprehend british stream of consciousness novel thoroughly without reading freudian psychological theories the modern philosophy and new psychology not only suggest the experimental nature of woolf s fiction but also explain the reason for their conscious breaking with the technical limitations of th