Flowers for Algernon
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
(Difference between revisions)
| Revision as of 18:02, 19 March 2009 Jahsonic (Talk | contribs) ← Previous diff |
Revision as of 18:02, 19 March 2009 Jahsonic (Talk | contribs) Next diff → |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| {{Template}} | {{Template}} | ||
| - | In literature and film, an '''unreliable narrator''' (a term coined by [[Wayne C. Booth]] in his 1961 book ''[[The Rhetoric of Fiction]]'') is a [[literary device]] in which the credibility of the [[narrator]] is seriously [[compromised]]. This unreliability can be due to [[mental illness|psychological instability]], a powerful [[bias]], a lack of knowledge, or even a deliberate attempt to deceive the reader or audience. Unreliable narrators are usually [[first-person narrative|first-person narrators]], but [[third-person narrative|third-person narrators]] can also be unreliable. | ||
| - | The nature of the narrator is sometimes immediately clear. For instance, a story may open with the narrator making a plainly false or delusional claim or admitting to being severely mentally ill, or the story itself may have a [[frame story|frame]] in which the narrator appears as a character, with clues to his unreliability. A more common, and dramatic, use of the device delays the revelation until near the story's end. This [[twist ending]] forces the reader to reconsider their [[point of view (literature)|point of view]] and experience of the story. In many cases the narrator's unreliability is never fully revealed but only hinted at, leaving the reader to wonder how much the narrator should be trusted and how the story should be interpreted. | + | '''''Flowers for Algernon''''' is a [[science fiction]] [[short story]] and subsequent [[novel]] written by [[Daniel Keyes]]. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue of ''[[The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction]]'', won the [[Hugo Award for Best Short Story]] in 1960. The novel was published in 1966 and was joint winner of that year's [[Nebula Award for Best Novel]] (with [[Babel-17]]). |
| - | + | ||
| - | The literary device of the unreliable narrator should not be confused with other devices such as [[euphemism]], [[hyperbole]], [[irony]], [[metaphor]], [[pathetic fallacy]], [[personification]], [[sarcasm]], or [[satire]], in which the narrator is credible, but the narrator's words cannot be taken literally. Similarly, [[historical novel]]s, [[speculative fiction]], and clearly delineated [[dream sequence]]s are generally not considered instances of unreliable narration, even though they describe events that did not or could not happen. | + | |
| - | ===Novels=== | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | One of the earliest known examples of unreliable narration is [[Chaucer]]'s ''[[The Canterbury Tales]]''. In [[The Merchant's Prologue and Tale|the Merchant's Tale]], the narrator, being unhappy in his marriage, allows his [[misogyny|misogynistic]] bias to slant much of his tale. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | Many novels are narrated by children, whose inexperience can impair their judgment and make them unreliable. In ''[[Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]'' (1884), [[Huckleberry Finn|Huck]]'s inexperience leads him to make overly charitable judgments about the characters in the novel; even going so far as to accuse his author, "Mr. Mark Twain," of having stretched the truth in the previous book, ''[[The Adventures of Tom Sawyer]]'', an early example of a [[Fourth wall | fourth-wall breach]]. In contrast, [[Holden Caulfield]], in ''[[The Catcher in the Rye]]'', tends to assume the worst. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | Another class of unreliable narrator is one who intentionally attempts to deceive the audience or other characters in the story. One of the earliest examples is Agatha Christie's detective novel ''[[The Murder of Roger Ackroyd]]'', in which the narrator is scrupulously honest in facts revealed but neglects to mention certain key events. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | In some cases, as with [[Vladimir Nabokov]]'s 1962 ''[[Pale Fire]]'', the reader is unable to discern among several possible narrators, each with his or her own intrinsically unreliable agenda and bias. This serves to effectively include the reader in the experience of the novel, rather than simply providing a narrative, encouraging independent theories and ultimately furthering a point. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | [[Gene Wolfe]] could be said to have made the unreliable narrator one of his stylistic signatures. The most famous example is the complicated and self-contradictory autobiography of the Autarch Severian, who claims to possess eidetic memory, in [[Book_of_the_new_sun|The Book of the New Sun]]. Narrators in others of Wolfe's books include a soldier who loses his entire memory every morning (''[[Soldier of the Mist]]'') and a combination of multiple personalities sharing one body (''[[Book of the Long Sun]]'' and ''[[Book of the Short Sun]]''). | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | The eponymous narrator of [[Michael Moorcock|Michael Moorcock's]] ''[[Pyat Quartet]]'' is thoroughly and entertainingly duplicitous. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | Randy Mulray, the main character in [[C.W. Schultz]]’s novel [[Yeval]], easily qualifies as an unreliable narrator. The reader grows to know that Mulray is a very self-conscious man with a low self-esteem, which in turn makes him obviously overplay (or underplay) situations that he describes to the reader. Because he is a drug-dealer and envisions thoughts of a serial killer, there are several ''hints'' throughout the novel that Mulray could be hallucinating some of what he tells. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | [[Daniel Keyes|Daniel Keyes's]] ''[[Flowers for Algernon]]'' has a narrator, Charley, who could also be considered unreliable. Charley is mentally retarded, and his descriptions of events in his life reveal a very limited understanding of events around him. His vocabulary and understanding improve when an experimental treatment radically increase his intelligence, only to decline again in the final section of the novel. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | In some instances, unreliable narration can bring about the fantastic in works of fiction. In [[Kingsley Amis|Kingsley Amis's]] ''[[The Green Man]]'', for example, the unreliability of the narrator Maurice Allington destabilizes the boundaries between reality and the fantastic. The same applies to [[Nigel Williams|Nigel Williams's]] ''Witchcraft''. | + | |
| {{GFDL}} | {{GFDL}} | ||
Revision as of 18:02, 19 March 2009
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Flowers for Algernon is a science fiction short story and subsequent novel written by Daniel Keyes. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1960. The novel was published in 1966 and was joint winner of that year's Nebula Award for Best Novel (with Babel-17).
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Flowers for Algernon" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
