ABSTRACT

John Maxwell Coetzee, 2003 Nobel Prize winner and twice Man Booker Prize winner, is also a white South African novelist, literary critic, translator and college professor. Summertime completes the trilogy of Coetzee’s autobiographies and is considered as one of his best works. In this novel, combining fictionality and reality, Coetzee uses the third-person narration and the present tense to present a different protagonist. This thesis concentrates on the narrative features and analyzes this novel from three aspects: narrative point of view, narrative voice and narrative time. Summertime is a work in which Coetzee tries to explore his inner world, while this thesis will show how Coetzee reaches this goal. Through the employment of these narrative maneuvers, Coetzee challenges and subverts the tradition of biography writing. 

Keywords: J. M. Coetzee; Summertime; narrative features; narrative point of view; narrative voice

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

摘要

Chapter One INTRODUCTION-1

Chapter Two LITERATURE REVIEW-3

2.1 History of the Previous Studies-3

2.2 Inadequacy of the Previous Studies-3

Chapter Three NARRATIVE POINT OF VIEW IN SUMMERTIME-5

3.1 Narrative Point of View-5

3.2 The Third-Person Narrative Point of View-6

Chapter Four NARRATIVE VOICES IN SUMMERTIME-9

4.1 Narrative Voice-9

4.2 Juxtaposition of Multiple Narrative Voices in Summertime-10

Chapter Five NARRATIVE SEQUENCE IN SUMMERTIME-14

5.1 Narrative Time-14

5.2 Unique Narrative Sequence in Summertime-15

5.3 The Present-Tense Narration-16

Chapter Six Conclusion-18

WORKS CITED-20