本文是一篇英语文学论文，本文运用女性主义叙事学理论，分析《恩惠》中独特的叙事技巧是如何深化小说主题、传递女性意识，从而成功建构作者的话语权威和小说文本内的女性权威。
Chapter One Introduction
1.1 The Focus of the Study
As one of the most prominent African-American women writers in modern literary world as well asthe first African-American Nobel Prize laureate in literature in 1993,Toni Morrison is considered as one ofthe foremost figures in modern American literature.Her works revolve around African-Americans,alwayscentring on the tragic experience of African-Americans.Most characters in her novel strive to find andconstruct their own cultural identity in an unequal society.Her works often depict the tough and hard timesand the dark side of humanity,but still convey integrity and redemption.
Morrison debuted as a novelist in 1970 and soon received great fame.She has released eleven novelsto far as well as making outstanding contributions in literature and has won many awards in her life,including American Book Prize,Pulitzer Prize,Nobel Prize in Literature and many other awards.
As Morrison’s ninth novel,A Mercy,published in 2008,still continues her concern with black women.Besides,she expands on her concentration to the survival of ethnic women in the pre-slavery period underthe manifold influence of racism,sexism and classism.Since its publication,it received great acclaim,attracting great attention and enthusiasm from scholars at home and abroad.
1.2 Literature Review
Since its publication,A Mercy soon received a large number of comments from home and abroad.Scholars have made plenty of researches on this novel from different aspects,which could be divided intotwo aspects:thematic studies and narrative studies.
Firstly,many scholars draw attention to the different themes reflected in A Mercy,including trauma,slavery,maternal love and feminism.
Scholars study the traumatic experiences and causes of trauma suffered by black women in A Mercy,and explore the trauma brought by racism,sexism and slavery to the entire African-American community.Burns(2012)suggests that A Mercy explores the impact of trauma on the black female slave in earlyAmerica.In this article,he holds that Morrison offers not only a new perspective on how the incurabletrauma haunts them,but also a new viewpoint in the power of language to serve as a tool for women’s toprotect themselves and develop their self-confidence.Allen(2015)in his thesis argues that Florens suffered from the incurable trauma due to her mother’s abandonment.In his thesis,he connects trauma to slavery,holding that the history of slavery is not only involved in a singular core or an original event.
Some other scholars believe that the novel reflects the evil of slavery by showing the harm thatslavery did to blacks,Native Americans and indentured white workers in the early colonial period of NorthAmerica.Wang Shouren(2009)suggests that race and color are not always determinants of slavery in thefirst place.In Morrison’s novels,slavery causes physical and mental damage to all kinds of slaves,andeven freemen are also enslaved by spiritual shackles.Mohammed(2014)holds that on the road of freedom,slaves lack their honor,their home and their trust in themselves.Yu Xiaofang(2013)in her thesis exploresdifferent kinds of enslavement by analyzing the symbols in the novel.Form serves the theme,and the useof symbol in the novel is unique,which better reflects and deepens the theme of“slavery”in the novel.
Chapter Two Female Authority Constructed Through Narrative Voice
2.1 Personal Voice
“Since the 1970s,black female writers began to adopt different narrative modes,one of which waspersonal voice.Personal voice refers to narrators who are self-consciously telling their ownhistories.”(Lanser,18)In this mode,the narrator is no longer“outside the story”,but narrates his/her ownstory.The first-person narrator“I”is not only the narrator of the story,but also the participant of the story,which means that one is the“experiential self”and the other is the“narrative self”.“Genette calls this typeof na
