The Gendered Dynamics of Fiction Writing in the Narrative Strategies of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey

If we situate the major works of Jane Austen chronologically based on the time of composition, the last published novel Northanger Abbey (1818) becomes her first finished novel. The thirteen years that bridged the completion and the publication informs changes in the contextual and literary circumstances between the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century. Northanger Abbey adopts an authorial narrator whereas authoriality was not the literary trend when the work was published. At the time of composition, because of their female gender, women writers experienced difficulties when negotiating with the publishers and explicitly making social criticism. When they employed an authorial stance in their writing, it was preferred that the authority of the voice should be appropriately mitigated. Developing on Susan S. Lanser's arguments, my essay explores the narrative strategies adopted in the creation of an authorial narrator. Taking the view that cultural construction of gender can affect narrative form and production, I would enhance the reading of the novel from a feminist narratological perspective. I shall first delineate how the use of paratextual texts reveals the conditions of female authorship and the position of women novelists of Austen's time. Then I draw on Claudia L. Johnson's argument that Austen employs understatement as a form of overstatement to minimize the overt authority of the narrative voice. Focusing on the discourse of negation and narrative refusals, I will account for how what appears to be understated and disnarrated is a disguise of its opposite meaning.

關鍵字

Jane Austen ； Northanger Abbey ； narrative strategies ； gender

並列摘要

如果把簡．奧斯汀的小說作品按寫作的時序排列，最後出版的小說《諾桑覺寺》其實是作者第一本完成的作品。從完成寫作到出版期間的十三年反映出十八世紀後期到十九世紀初社會和文學環境的轉變。《諾桑覺寺》採用作者型叙述者，但叙述者的權威性到了小說出版時已不流行。女性作家在創作小說時，由於女性的身分，在與出版商交涉和明確地批評社會時會遇到困難。當她們用作者型叙述觀點寫作時，往往傾向於調低叙述聲音的權威。本論文以蘇珊．蘭瑟的論述為出發點，探討相關叙述手法創造的作者型叙述者。在文化建構的性別能影響叙述形式和創造的前提下，本論文將應用女性主義叙述學以解讀《諾桑覺寺》。首先，將闡述類文本框架如何反映當時女性作家的條件和地位，接著參考克勞迪婭．約翰遜的觀點，探討奧斯汀如何以“保守陳述”的寫作手法掩蓋“誇大手法”以減低叙述聲音的明顯權威，然後進一步集中分析否定用語和拒絕叙述手法如何掩飾被保守陳述和拒絕叙述的內容的相反含意。

並列關鍵字

簡．奧斯汀；《諾桑覺寺》；叙述手法；性別

參考文獻

Austen, Jane,Kinsley, James(ed.)(2004).Persuasion.Cambridge:Oxford University Press.

Google Scholar

Austen, Jane,Davie, John(ed.),Kinsley, James(ed.)(2008).Northanger Abbey: Lady Susan; The Watsons; Sandition: With Lady Susan.Cambridge:Oxford University Press.