| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺東大學 === 兒童文學研究所 === 98 === A Narrative study of David Macaulay’s Picture Books
Hsiu-Shan Yang
Abstract
This study investigates the narrative techniques and style in the picture books written and illustrated by David Macaulay. In order to assess his overall narrative style, this study explores Macaulay experiences in creation and publication, and analyze the effects of these two elements shown in his work. Besides, the analysis of his work consists of different components, such as the formal structure settings, the use of material and skills, the narrative elements, and the patterns of picture and word integration.
The findings show that Macaulay promotes the plot and events with time and space narrative elements. He mainly uses words and the development of events to create the idea of time and movement and creates the space in the books by framing the pictures and making changes in the depth of field and viewpoints. In addition, his use of consistent or contradiction in word and picture integration makes the diverse narrative presentations in his books.
Macaulay sees each of his picture books as a journey and his work can be regarded as a panoramic integrity in which all the details are created. His style of narrative also includes the concept of mess. That is, he uses multiple narrative viewpoints and the chaotic image composition to show the climax of the plots and multiple dimensions of social reality. His humor is also presented in the work.
Macaulay provides readers with two different types of texts: readerly text and writerly text as mentioned by Roland Barthes; namely, readerly text requires readers to come up with a closed interpretation while reading and writerly text encourages readers to play with the text within the reading process. Readers will gain different pleasures from reading Macaulay’s picture books and picture book creators can learn from his narrative presentations.
Keywords：journey, mess, narrative of picture books, style of narrative
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