ABSTRACT

Youth is an autobiographical novel published in 2002, written by South-African author J.M. Coetzee. Mixing reality with fictionality, the narrative of this autobiography is different from that of a traditional autobiographical novel. The present paper endeavours to investigate into the narrative features in Youth, with the third-person narration, the present-tense narration and discontinuous historical scenes included, to shed light on the uniqueness of this novel. Using the third-person narration, the author can fully express his emotion while remaining objective. Coetzee chooses the present tense narration to avoid the distance between narrative time and experience time. This narrative strategy can keep the improvisational state when recollecting. In addition, the juxtaposition of discontinuous scenes can reflect the true state of history. Altogether, these three narrative features reveal Coetzee’s special concept: autobiography is autrebiography, which is a kind of biography using the third-person narration to reveal character’s image, personality and ideology.

Keywords：Youth; narrative features; the third-person narration; the present-tense narration; discontinuous scenes

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

摘要

Chapter One INTRODUCTION-1

Chapter Two LITERRATURE REVIEW-3

  2.1 History of Previous Studies-3

  2.2 Inadequacy of Previous Studies-4

Chapter THREE THE THIRD-PERSON NARRATION-5

3.1 An “Objective” Narrative of John’s Inner World-5

3.2 Implicit Conversion of Narrative Point of View-7

Chapter FOUR THE PRESENT-TENSE NARRATION-9

4.1 Doublication of Narrative Time and Experience Time-9

4.2 Improvised Memories-10

Chapter FIVE THE JUXTAPOSITION OF DISCONTINUOUS SCENES-12

5.1 Unique Concept of Time-12

5.2 Inner Hesitation and Thinking-13

Chapter SIX CONCLUSION-16

WORKS CITED-18