时间：2022-09-13 12:22:24
【Abstract】The great success of Woolf’s works owns to her breaking freely from traditional linear structure based on the chronological sequence of clock time, and setting up a brand-new order of narrative time. According to different plots and features of her fictions, Woolf designs the time structure with different colors, making each work unique, andMrs. Dalloway deserves in particular a mention.
【Key words】time sequence disorder
The so-called time sequence is the order of time. In correspondence with the story time and the narrative time of the narrative works, time sequence can be divided into the story sequence and the narrative sequence. Story sequence is the natural time order of the story being told and the natural arrangement order from the beginning of the story to its end; narrative sequence is the order in which the text develops itself successively, the arrangement order from the beginning to the end, and the order in which the narrator tells the story. Although it is an important aspect of artistic manipulation that narration changes the time of the original story so as to create the literary works, compared with the haphazard and partial use of the misled time sequence in the traditional novels, the misled time sequence in Woolf's experimental novels can be found everywhere. In fact, Woolf's time sequence in her works is presented in an out-of-order way. What we should pay attention to is that Woolf set the time sequence in a disorder way is just the manifestation of her respect of the inner reality.
Woolf's narrative technique on the setting of the disorder time sequence can be clearly illustrated inMrs. Dalloway. The main thread of this novel is the narration of Clarissa Dalloway's life within fifteen hours in which the time duration began from the morning when she set out to buy flowers till the evening when she held the party. Meanwhile, the experiences of the other two characters on this day, Peter and Septimus, interpenetrate in it. With the reminding of the London Big Ben's frequent toll, the development of the plot inMrs. Dalloway and the major characters' behaviors and events happened in the physical time can be identified clearly: about 10 o' clock in the morning, Mrs. Dalloway set out to buy flowers; Septimus and his wife Lucrezia sit in the park idly. At 11 o' clock, Peter visited Mrs. Dalloway. At 11:30, Peter was standing on the Trafalgar Square. At 11:40, Septimus saw his dead comrade in arms in the illusion. At 12 o' clock, Septimus and his wife Lucrezia stepped in Sir William Bradshaw's clinic; Mrs. Dalloway unfolded her green dress on the bed. At 1:30 in the afternoon, Hugh Whitbread and Richard Dalloway took part in Mrs. Bruton's luncheon. At 3 o' clock in the afternoon, Richard came back home with flowers. At 6 o' clock in the evening, Septimus commited suicide at home, jumping from the building; Peter was pondering on the street, with the longing for civilization. From night till the next early morning, Mrs. Dalloway held the party at home.
The time sequence of the above story lasted from 10 o' clock in the morning to the next early morning, the arrangement of time is strictly in accordance with the clock time, with clear and definite linear development. However, the very disorder of the narrative time is in sharp contrast with the story time.
The disorder of the narrative time is established at the very beginning of the novel too. The narrative time sequence in the beginning part is shown in the following method:
Clarissa felt the fresh air (the present) -Bourton's morning (the past) -Clarissa enjoyed the beautiful scene (the past) -Clarissa chatted with Peter (the past) -Clarissa felt suspicious of Peter's words (the present, right now) -Peter will come back (the future) -Peter's impressions on Clarissa (the past).
The whole paragraph completely broke the strict linear pattern of the clock time, while the past, the present and the future interwove together and penetrated each other. The present contains the retrospect to the past ("What a lark! What a plunge!" just like in Bourton in the past), the retrospect conceals the present feelings (How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course), and the imagination reveals the present worries (millions of things had utterly vanished - how strange it was! - a few sayings like this about cabbages). Such disorder of the narrative time sequence dynamically shows the character's uneasy, filmy, drifty and ambiguous thoughts; meanwhile it truly reflects the character's emotions at that moment - a little complaint about the present and the yearning for the past.
The disorder flow of the time sequence in Woolf's novels is closer to the subjective spiritual reality: people's heart and soul can be a multi-leveled existence, the present "me" can be different from the past "me", the former experience might mean new things in the present, people's "ego" can split into an active one and another one who can react, judge, and form. The flexibility of the narrative time Woolf employs offers a perfect medium in her novels to reflect the chaos of minutiae impinging on the individual mind, to capture the thoughts of the characters at the subtle moment of their thinking, and to render a mental state as freely as she wishes.
References:
[1]Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. London: Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1996.
[2]Prince, Gerald.A Dictionary of Narratology.Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1987.
[3]瞿世镜.意识流小说理论.成都:四川文艺出版社,1989.