230201 Monologists and Madmen: Unreliable Narration (S) (WiSe 2015/2016)

Although we know that when we are told a story, the teller might be telling lies, misreporting or distorting his or her account, we paradoxially believe that generally speaking fictional narratives are 'true' in the sense that we can trust the narrator to give us a reliable rendering of the storyworld. However, some authors have experimented with this assumption, inventing narrators whose accounts at some point cast doubts upon their reliability. Analysing a few short stories and four novels, we will analyse the textual strategies and communication structures that create the effect of unreliable narration. We will survey definitions of narrative unreliability from classical and post-classical narratology and explore the philosophical arguments about truth and fictionality that unreliable narration involves.

Requirements for participation, required level

Students ought to be familiar with the basic category of narrative text analysis, as taught in the "Analysing and Interpreting Literary Texts" classes.

Bibliography

The short stories will be made available at the beginning of the semester. Students who whish to attend have to obtain their own copy of the following novels (any edition):

• Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier
• Patrick McGrath, Spider
• Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day
• Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime