Transcript Unreliable Narrator Powerpoint

THE UNRELIABLE
NARRATOR
WHAT IS AN UNRELIABLE
NARRATOR?
Wayne Booth coined term in 1961
Unreliability connected with the implied
author
“For lack of better terms, I have called a narrator
reliable when he acts in accordance with the norms
of the work (which is to say, the implied author’s
norms) unreliable when he does not.”
- Wayne Booth The Rhetoric of Fiction
CLUES TO UNRELIABLITY
 Contradictions in a storyline
 Actions vs. statements of the narrator
 Different interpretations of events and contradictions in them
 Different views of the narrator expressed by other characters
 Memory gaps
 Signals in the form of titles, subtitles
READER’S INVOLVEMENT
Reading between the lines
Subjectivity
Reader’s knowledge of culture, usual behavior,
history, etc.
FOR EXAMPLE…
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6NxD7RQPF0
How is Tom Riddle an
unreliable narrator?