The ‘Death’ of the Unreliable Narrator: Toward a Functional History of Narrative Unreliability
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Bruno Zerweck
Abstract
Two decades ago, the discussion about the concept of the “unreliable narrator” has been a major driver of a cultural and historical readjustment of narratology allowing for a cognitive, cultural-narratological, and historical theory of unreliable narration. This essay revisits such a call for a historicizing of the phenomenon, promoted foremost by Ansgar Nünning, but claims another fundamental paradigm shift, one towards a functional-historical approach to narrative unreliability that in the end calls into question the relevance of the concept for contemporary fictional literature itself. It shows that unreliable narration, at its core, was a literary phenomenon of Modernism and Postmodernism, based on the creation of fundamental ambiguity within the narrated world and the reading process. The realization that, in the post-truth age we are living in, such a semantic disruption can no longer be a function of ‘unreliable’ narrative literature, leads me to pronouncing the ‘death’ of the unreliable narrator. This observation, however, does not render the concept superfluous as a whole - on the contrary it leads us to a rebirth of the phenomenon in many other guises and genres, paradoxically calling again for more complex answers to the problem of unreliability.
Abstract
Two decades ago, the discussion about the concept of the “unreliable narrator” has been a major driver of a cultural and historical readjustment of narratology allowing for a cognitive, cultural-narratological, and historical theory of unreliable narration. This essay revisits such a call for a historicizing of the phenomenon, promoted foremost by Ansgar Nünning, but claims another fundamental paradigm shift, one towards a functional-historical approach to narrative unreliability that in the end calls into question the relevance of the concept for contemporary fictional literature itself. It shows that unreliable narration, at its core, was a literary phenomenon of Modernism and Postmodernism, based on the creation of fundamental ambiguity within the narrated world and the reading process. The realization that, in the post-truth age we are living in, such a semantic disruption can no longer be a function of ‘unreliable’ narrative literature, leads me to pronouncing the ‘death’ of the unreliable narrator. This observation, however, does not render the concept superfluous as a whole - on the contrary it leads us to a rebirth of the phenomenon in many other guises and genres, paradoxically calling again for more complex answers to the problem of unreliability.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter i
- Contents v
- A Tale of Two Concepts: Ansgar Nünning at Sixty 1
- Stories of Dangerous Life in the Post- Trauma Age: Toward a Cultural Narratology of Resilience 15
- Mind the Narratives: Towards a Cultural Narratology of Attention 37
- The End of the World (as We Know It)? – Cultural Ways of Worldmaking in Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Narratives 57
- Plumbing Distant Spatiotemporal Scales: Towards an Econarratology of Planetary Memory in Narratives of the Global South 75
- Narrative Forms in the Age of the Anthropocene: Negotiating Human-Nonhuman Relations in Global South Novels 91
- Fact, Fiction, and Everything in-between: Strategies of Reader Activation in Postcolonial Graphic Narratives 109
- ‘It’s Not Our Opinion, It’s the Opinion of Our Roles’ – Fremdverstehen Revisited or: Where Foreign Language Education and Narratology Can Meet 129
- Narrative and Visual Resources of Culture in Contemporary Indigenous Children’s Books from Australia 149
- Troubling Justice: Narratives of Revenge 165
- Erin Burnett in Mali: Bardic Television and the Genealogy of Cultural Narratology 185
- New Media Narratives: Olivia Sudjic’s Sympathy and Identity in the Digital Age 199
- The ‘Death’ of the Unreliable Narrator: Toward a Functional History of Narrative Unreliability 215
- Odyssean Travels: The Migration of Narrative Form (Homer – Lamb – Joyce) 241
- A European Storyteller? Collective Narration in John Berger’s Into Their Labours 269
- Brexit as Cultural Performance: Towards a Narratology of Social Drama 293
- Contributors 321
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter i
- Contents v
- A Tale of Two Concepts: Ansgar Nünning at Sixty 1
- Stories of Dangerous Life in the Post- Trauma Age: Toward a Cultural Narratology of Resilience 15
- Mind the Narratives: Towards a Cultural Narratology of Attention 37
- The End of the World (as We Know It)? – Cultural Ways of Worldmaking in Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Narratives 57
- Plumbing Distant Spatiotemporal Scales: Towards an Econarratology of Planetary Memory in Narratives of the Global South 75
- Narrative Forms in the Age of the Anthropocene: Negotiating Human-Nonhuman Relations in Global South Novels 91
- Fact, Fiction, and Everything in-between: Strategies of Reader Activation in Postcolonial Graphic Narratives 109
- ‘It’s Not Our Opinion, It’s the Opinion of Our Roles’ – Fremdverstehen Revisited or: Where Foreign Language Education and Narratology Can Meet 129
- Narrative and Visual Resources of Culture in Contemporary Indigenous Children’s Books from Australia 149
- Troubling Justice: Narratives of Revenge 165
- Erin Burnett in Mali: Bardic Television and the Genealogy of Cultural Narratology 185
- New Media Narratives: Olivia Sudjic’s Sympathy and Identity in the Digital Age 199
- The ‘Death’ of the Unreliable Narrator: Toward a Functional History of Narrative Unreliability 215
- Odyssean Travels: The Migration of Narrative Form (Homer – Lamb – Joyce) 241
- A European Storyteller? Collective Narration in John Berger’s Into Their Labours 269
- Brexit as Cultural Performance: Towards a Narratology of Social Drama 293
- Contributors 321
