Stories in Disguise: On Odysseus' Ithacan Lies and Their Relevance ...

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is not, the communication is performed through the broken line above. Hence, according to its ironic nature "unreliable narration" offers two messages, one credible the other not. My own analysis has not taken recourse to the notion of an implied author but has instead set the "storyteller" in that position. But this does not really matter for the structural analysis which is content with distinguishing two complementary levels, one of norms and one of drama. According to Marie Laure Ryan there are three possible means for the implied author to correct the false assertions of an "unreliable narrator": (1) the narrator could himself reveal the faulty information after it has been given; (2) another narrator could give the straight information that will correct the false one; (3) the implied discourse of the narrator could reveal how the message is actually to be understood. 10 Ryan exemplifies the first possibility with Borges' "The Shape of the Sword". In this short story a narrator relates how he met with a villain and how it all turned out. After telling this the narrator reveals that the villain, up to now referred to as "he", is in fact the narrator himself, while the hero of the story, hitherto referred to as "I", should instead be understood as "he". The second method is manifested by "polyvocal" narratives like Laclos' epistolary novel Les Liaisons danguereuses where one reliable correspondent may correct another less reliable. She also mentions Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury where four voices are heard in turn, three personal, Benjy's, Quentin's and Jason's, and one anonymous and impersonal. This impersonal voice, which should be understood as the most trustworthy, reveals for instance that Jason is an unreliable narrator. The third possibility, revelation by the implied discourse of the author, is exemplified by Ring Lardner's You Know Me Al and Albert Camus' La Chute. However, according to Ryan this method "leads to much more problematic diagnoses" than the two mentioned above: The narrator's declarations should thus contain both an accurate representation of the narrated state of affairs, and hints of their own deficiency, such as uncorrected internal contradictions, or blatant lack of fit between the reported events and their evaluation. These types of clues can be used to raise doubts in the reader's mind as to the soundness of the narrator's judgment [...] but they are too ambiguous to demonstrate deliberate insincerity or faulty information. When a narrator is lying outright (a very rare case), or clearly mistaken as to how things are in the world he descibes, he can only be caught by the explicit discourse of the first two method. 11 But in my opinion, only the last and most "problematic" method complies with the Boothian concept of an "unreliable narrator" violating implicit superior norms of the narrative. Speaking of the "unreliable narrator" as a literary device, or technique, with its own anticipated aesthetic effects, should imply that we are offered continual textual signals that expose this narrator as faulty (as self-deceptive, naïve etc.), i.e. not entrusted with the "whole" story. Methods one and two never use any formal or technical means to let us understand that the narrator is dramatized in this way. It is hard to understand then why such a narrator's account should be taken as "unreliable" at all by us who have nothing to do with information internal to a fictional world but only with the significance of a representation of such a "world." From a formalistic point of view it would be just as correct to say that we are presented with two different stories within an inconsistent work. Certainly the latter refers to the former but that does not imply that it could provide it with the specific device which will make us identify it as "unreliable narration". The reader should not be hoodwinked by a literary device; rather we think of techniques and devices 6
as instrumental in the communication of literary meaning. The "unreliable narrator" shouldn't fool anybody but himself. Postmodern stories, like Borges' "The Shape of the Sword", tend to achieve part of their effects by provoking the conventions of traditional storytelling technique and the rules for the communication of stories. Such effects should accordingly not be analyzed using formalistic or narratological instruments. And when it comes to the examples Ryan refers to as "polyvocal" narratives, where one narrator corrects the other, I think her analysis is not quite correct. Truly both Laclos and Faulkner give signals that will lead the reader to suspect "unreliable narration" even at the moment it is before his eyes, the statements of a later narrator only affirm what is already assumed. The reason Ryan counts all three types as instances of the "unreliable narrator" and sees the third case as the most problematic is her overall theory of narratives and narrators. According to Ryan all narratives are to be regarded as reports of factual events, reports that could turn out to be either right or wrong. Fictional narratives are mimetic representations of factual reporting. Consequently, a narrator is "the speaking 'voice' which takes responsibility for the act of narration, telling the story as 'true fact.'" 12 But, of course, it is not necessary to regard narration as a series of affirmations that certain events have taken place. A more fruitful approach would be to regard it as the communication of stories, which is something more than the sum of a series of descriptions of events. An 'unreliable' narrator is, according to Ryan, a reporter who fails to tell the truth. On the other hand, she is compelled to admit that an "unreliable narrator" very seldom seems to lie outright. 13 This fact might suggest that the device of the "unreliable narrator" could be analysed more fruitfully as something other than a mistaken or lying relater of facts. It appears then that a storyteller can employ the device of an "unreliable narrator" in two main ways. He may, on the one hand, let the focus rest on this narrator himself, dramatizing his attempts to delude his narratee and or himself. A story like that will probably be described as "psychological," in essence portraying the unreliable protagonist as a certain psychological type. Examples of narratives with such self-deceivers are Henry James' "The Liar" and "The Aspern Papers" or Albert Camus' La Chute. On the other hand, he may focus on what an "unreliable narrator" unconsciously tells; such a teller will certainly also be characterized as a kind of selfdeceiver, very often as naïve, but will not be the protagonist of a psychological story of selfdeception. He is trying to give an account of things he has witnessed, but since his capacity as a true observer is limited he will now and then misrepresent things. The barber, Whitey, in Ring Lardner's "Haircut" is unaware of the real significance of the commemorative speech he gives on the character Jim Kendall whom he has admired and whose death he regrets. Yet, from his monologue the reader can get all the material needed to recognize a story about a really disgusting brute who in the end suffers his well deserved punishment. Another example is Ernest Hemingway's "My Old Man", where the young boy out of affection for his father and his own naivity, is unable to see that what he tells us about his "old man" in order to motivate his affection for him can just as well be taken to indicate his father's shortcomings. The artistic point of such narratives is evident. Narrated in an anonymous, objective mode these stories would have looked rather trite, but presenting the events from this extraordinary perspective makes them interesting as a manifestation of artistic tour de force. It is very like the technique of certain mannerist paintings such as "The Conversion of Saul" by Carravaggio, where the sacred and well-known motif is presented from a quite conspicuous point of view, formally rendering the horse the protagonist rather than the man. II Odysseus' Ithacan Lies 7
Page 1 and 2: Stories in Disguise: On Odysseus' I
Page 3 and 4: Such a sense of irony can also be b
Page 5: Odysseus lets the Phaiakians know t
Page 9 and 10: to his interlocutors, but the "unre
Page 11 and 12: typically again, the means employed
Page 13 and 14: straining to kill me, for they were
Page 15 and 16: even in your own country give over
Page 17 and 18: these three episodes do not resembl
Page 19 and 20: was king for nine-year periods, and
Page 21 and 22: Perspective: Transmission and Recep

Stories in Disguise: On Odysseus' Ithacan Lies and Their Relevance ...

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