| Summary: | 碩士 === 臺東師範學院 === 兒童文學研究所 === 90 === Form is a writer’s strategy to express, explore, and develop his subjects; under the progress of development of novel art, the transformation or creation of form also becomes a chance to create new works. Since form and content can’t be separated, investigating the strategy of a novel’s form can show how a writer expresses his sensibility to subjects or presents the particular kind of aesthetic effects through some delicate arrangement of the order or style.
A British young adults’ novelist, Aidan Cambers, is conscious of dealing with various experiments on form in his creative writing and causes critics’ attentions. This essay will analyze the significances of formal device utilized in Dance on My Grave.
At first, this essay will abstractly synthesize variously vigorous characteristics of form in this work with confessional narrative and postmodern approach as two dominant ideas to be discussed distinguishably. The analysis of this essay points out that confessional narrative constructs double narratives, makes the act of writing become problematic, and presents the process of a protagonist’s narrative construction; in addition, confessional narrative also leads to a plot’s decrease and a character’s prominent mental state, offers a discursive but vivid way to express teen protagonist’s image, reveals his self-awareness, and gives him subjectivity. On the other hand, the experiments of formal device embodies postmodern aesthetic effects─the multi-genred forms polyphonic narrative in the text and reflects a kind of intersubjective and constructivist viewpoint of reality; The metafictional narrative extends a novel’s self-consiousness and presents self-reflexitivity of literature.
Continuously, the result of the above is located in the context of “Young Adult literature and reading” to reconsider, examine how formal device in Dance on My Grave reflects its identity of YA novel, and discuss how formal strategy influences a reader’s way to construct the significances of the text and to prompt reflexive and active reading. Eventually, I will consider the formal strategy for Dance on My Grave in Chambers’ viewpoint of creative writing and literary reading and then offer reflections and responses for critics’ doubts.
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