Reality and Construct: Narrative "Truth" in Andr Gide's The Counterfeiters

• Main Authors: Huang Yen Chao, 黃燕昭
• Other Authors: Frank W. Stevenson
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 1995
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/95935870866179111066

碩士 === 淡江大學 === 西洋語文研究所 === 83 === The systematic arrangement of the coincidences underlines the metafictional aspects of Gide's novel. I take first of all Fielding's epic tone and Nietzsche's erosion of contours to introduce Gide's idea of the pure novel. In the second chapter, Scholes's narrative perspective is applied. With the intrusive narrator's roles of maker and eye-witness, the author is now seen working on his novel as a stage manager. The playful tone serves to distract the reader's attention from the accumulation of coincidences while it reflects the dominance of the author over his characters. In the third chapter, I adopt the Chinese-box structure. Edouard's diary displays the metafictional self-reflexivity with the novel' s formation incorporated. The constant distinction and identification between Edouard and the intrusive narrator suggest that the former present an analogous portrait of the novelist at work. In the last chapter I focus on Armond and the little counterfeiters. With these shadowed characters as actors, Boris's suicide further unfolds itself as an "alternative truth" based on news items welded. These three narrative devices highlight the author's power to construct reality.