Introduction to Narrator Reliability
-One of the first tasks a reader has when beginning a fictional text is identifying the narrator of the text.
- After the reader has discovered the narrator, they must make a decision regarding whether the narrator is reliable or unreliable.
- Once a decision has been made, the reader can carefully consider narrative events in the novel to consider the validity of his/her depictions.
Consider...
-Readers determine an authors reliability based on their own personal morals, cultural values, and limited perceptions.
-Narrators considered reliable by one group of readers may be considered unreliable by another.
-Bruno Zarweck (2001) “Because unreliability is the effect of interpretive strategies, it is culturally and historically variable.”
-Each narrator is subject to readers’ analyses, but it should be argued that those analyses are unreliable, not the narrative characters themselves.
-One of the first tasks a reader has when beginning a fictional text is identifying the narrator of the text.
- After the reader has discovered the narrator, they must make a decision regarding whether the narrator is reliable or unreliable.
- Once a decision has been made, the reader can carefully consider narrative events in the novel to consider the validity of his/her depictions.
Consider...
-Readers determine an authors reliability based on their own personal morals, cultural values, and limited perceptions.
-Narrators considered reliable by one group of readers may be considered unreliable by another.
-Bruno Zarweck (2001) “Because unreliability is the effect of interpretive strategies, it is culturally and historically variable.”
-Each narrator is subject to readers’ analyses, but it should be argued that those analyses are unreliable, not the narrative characters themselves.