Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.4, 2021

 

Non-Human Narratives: Concepts, Types and Functions

(Abstract)

 

Shang Biwu

 

Non-human narratives refer to the organization of events involving non-human entities into a text, and include four main types: narratives of natural objects, narratives of supernatural objects, narratives of artificial objects, and narratives of artificial humans. In narrative works, the non-human entity at the level of both story and discourse usually plays the roles of narrator, character and focuser, thus performing three narrative functions, namely the narrative function, the action function and the observation function. The inclusion of non-human narratives in the scope of investigation can not only enrich the existing narrative theories and abandon the “anthropocentrism” of narrative studies, but also provide due criticism and interpretation of the large number of non-human narrative texts that exist in literary history.