Analysis of Temporal Arrangement in Lu Hsun’s “The New Year’s Sacrifice” from the Perspective of Narrative Stylistics
Faculty of English Language and Culture, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou 510420, China
| Abstract: | Temporal arrangement refers to the artistic reconstruction of the chronological order of events, a process not only closely related to narrative techniques, but also to stylistic features. In the analysis of temporal arrangement in Lu Hsun’s “The New Year’s Sacrifice”, the three aspects of order, duration, and frequency are discussed on the narratological level. In the aspect of order, a typical round-trip narrative structure is adopted in the story with two types of analepsis reflecting the fragmented and unreliable thoughts of “I”; as for duration, special attention is given to ellipsis and scene, the former arousing readers’ curiosity to fill the blanks with imagination and the later inviting readers to experience the sense of substitution; and in terms of frequency, repetition is prominent in the story, as is shown in the repetitive narratives of Ah Mao’s being taken away by wolf. Meanwhile, the stylistic features of the text are also analyzed, including foregrounding effects of repetition, meticulous arrangement of events’ timing, as well as unconventional grammatical and syntactic structure. The analysis is to uncover the well-constructed narrative structure and carefully-designed stylistic features, so as to help us better understand author’s sympathy towards women of miserable destiny in the old society and criticism against townspeople’s mercilessness, indifference, and numbness. To put it simply, the integration of narratology and stylistics helps us get closer to the implied author and become the implied reader. |
| Keywords: | Narrative Stylistics; Temporal Arrangement; Tense; Event |
| DOI: | 10.57237/j.cll.2025.03.002 |
View:
Downloads:
收稿日期: 2025-05-26
接受日期: 2025-09-29
在线出版日期: 2025-10-16
参考文献
| [1] | Bal, M. Narratology. C. van Boheemen, trans. [M]. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985. |
| [2] | Genette, G. Narrative discourse. J. E. Lewin, trans. [M]. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980. |
| [3] | Lu H. Selected Stories of Lu Hsun. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, trans. [M]. Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1989: 143. |
| [4] | Lu H. Selected Stories of Lu Hsun. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, trans. [M]. Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1989: 129. |
| [5] | Lu H. Selected Stories of Lu Hsun. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, trans. [M]. Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1989: 133. |
| [6] | Lu H. Selected Stories of Lu Hsun. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, trans. [M]. Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1989: 134. |
| [7] | Lu H. Selected Stories of Lu Hsun. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, trans. [M]. Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1989: 132. |
| [8] | Lu H. Selected Stories of Lu Hsun. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, trans. [M]. Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1989: 127. |
| [9] | Leech, G. and Short, M. Style in fiction. 2nd edn. [M]. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2007: 190. |
| [10] | Prince, G. A dictionary of narratology. revised edn. [M]. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003: 82. |
| [11] | Lu H. Selected Stories of Lu Hsun. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, trans. [M]. Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1989: 136. |
| [12] | Lu H. Selected Stories of Lu Hsun. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, trans. [M]. Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1989: 136-37. |
| [13] | Lu H. Selected Stories of Lu Hsun. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, trans. [M]. Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1989: 139. |
| [14] | Lu H. Selected Stories of Lu Hsun. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, trans. [M]. Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1989: 139-140. |
| [15] | Jakobson, R., 1960 Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics. Sebeok, T. A. ed. Style in language. [M]. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1960: 350-77. |
| [16] | Shen, D. Narrative, Style and Subtext: Reinterpretation of the British and American Classic Short Stories. [M]. Peking: Peking University Press, 2018: 27. |
| [17] | Shen, D. 2023. Stylisitics and Narratology. Burke, M. ed. The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics. 2nd edn., [M]. London: Routledge, 2023: 201-16. |
