Compare and Contrast American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis and The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro focussing on the topic of the unreliable narrator
The unreliable narrator is a technique used by authors where a scenario is created in which the reader cannot trust the narration of the book usually done in the first person. In American psycho, Ellis explores the sinister nature of Wall Street yuppie culture by examining the sanity of the narrating protagonist Patrick Bateman using the unreliable narrator. Ishiguro also uses this, exploring ideas of regret and also self-justification in the character of Mr Stevens in The Remains of the Day. Unlike Ellis who examines Bateman during his early working years, in his mid-twenties and
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Jennifer Phillips describes this relationship between Bateman’s personas as his ‘mask of sanity’ he wears to cover his ‘growing dementia’.
In comparison the technique of the unreliable narrator is used in The Remains of the Day. Kazuo Ishiguro is no stranger to use of the technique and indeed in his novel: An Artist of the Floating World, the protagonist, Ono, a painter, says: ‘I cannot recall any colleague who could paint a self-portrait with absolute honesty’. Zuzana Fonikova indicates that this inability to paint a picture of oneself honestly comes from a personal desire to ‘hide the disgraceful facts and emphasise the positive traits’, which is where the source of Stevens’ unreliability in recalling events stems, what he did not see as ‘disgraceful’ by his own standards then, he consciously or subconsciously supresses: ‘It is possible this is a case of hindsight colouring my memory’. In a different way to American psycho, in which the reader is an observing witness to Patrick Bateman’s life and narrative, The Remains of the Day presents a series of flashbacks narrated by an elderly protagonist looking back on his life, linking both novels is the idea of preservation of image, Bateman’s; an image desperately trying to keep up culturally and socially while Stevens; an image of dignity.
‘Dignity’ is frequently referenced throughout the novel, certainly in both in Stevens’ present and past. The idea of
An unreliable narrator is a character who is telling a story, but is not completely accurate or credible due to problems with the character 's mental state or maturity. The unreliable narrator holds a distorted view of the events taking place. This distortion gives readers a chance to offer their own interpretations to the story being told. Unreliable narration is valuable to the reader and satisfying to the author because the audience must look beyond what the narrator is portraying and view all the elements of the read to understand the author 's message. The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman are great examples of unreliable narration.
Tobias Wolff’s “Bullet in the Brain” is about a man who is a book critic. He recalls his lost a memory of childhood after being shot in the head during a bank robbery. In the beginning of the story, Anders’ personality is revealed as cynical, narcissistic, and pompous. As the story reaches its end, Anders reveals another side of his personality that has been hidden from the beginning of the story. Anders is presented as an unsympathetic character, but the author uses different points of view in the story that makes the audience sympathetic towards him in the end. The author uses different third person perspective, symbolism, and setting to contribute to the theme of the story that a human’s personality changes by time, and environment or experience.
Sometimes an author uses an untruthful person in their writings, called an unreliable narrator. In the stories by Poe, he used a such narrator to add elements of humor and suspense. For example in “The Raven”, the untruthful narrator states, “Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, though its answer little meaning-little relevancy
What makes a narrator unreliable? According to The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, an unreliable narrator is a character whose interpretation of events is different from the author’s. (Meyer,2014,195). It is a character who tells the reader a story that cannot be taken at face value. This may be because the point of view character is insane, lying, deluded or for any number of other reasons. ("What is an Unreliable Narrator? ," 2016, para. 1). In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” there is an unreliable narrator. What makes the narrator unreliable in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins-Gilman is her mixed views on what is happening around her, her trustworthiness, and her mental health issues.
An unreliable narrator is a narrator that necessarily cannot be trusted by the way they talk, and or the way they describe the way certain events occurred. You cannot believe everything an unreliable narrator says. Edgar Allan Poe’s narrators in “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” are unreliable because they are both mentally ill or have a serious problem with drinking. When reading a story you want to know all the details correctly and an unreliable narrator can change your understanding of the story, which both of the narrators do in the two short stories. The narrator's show a lot of evidence that they are both unreliable because of their sicknesses.
How does it feel to lose our dignity? The meaning of dignity •
In some cases, Neal deliberately constructs sentences by deviating from the expected grammatical tense. For example, in Line 1 – “My whole life I’ve been a fraud” – Neal uses the present perfect tense, ‘have been,’ to pronounce his false nature (141). The present perfect tense “describes an action that began in the past and continues in the present” (Leo 2000). Rather than saying he was a fraud pre-death, in past tense, Neal alludes to the notion that he continues to be a fraud post-death. This subtlety in tense, situated inside the very sentence that sets up Neal’s self-aware yet self-diminishing characterization, tests the reader to filter through the fraudulences in his
Writing short stories is common for most writers but the writer must give a powerful message in as few pages as they can. While comparing and contrasting short stories “Harrison Bergeron” written by Kurt Vonnegut, and “A Saucer of Loneliness” written by Theodore Sturgeon, I found that both stories were science fiction and they both offer scenarios to fascinating what if situations. In this case, both stories answer what if questions to situations where the government controls, but they also relay hidden personal meaning.
Dignity: Dignity is a person 's right to be treated like a human being. When we talk about human dignity, we mean human rights. If people are treated with dignity, they usually have the right to make choices for themselves. Dignity also means people are treated with respect. When we talk about dignity of the elderly, for example, we mean treating them like adults and not like children. Dignity involves privacy as well. People often feel that their dignity is compromised when their privacy is taken away. Ultimately, dignity is the idea that human beings are different from animals.
In the short story Bullet in the Brain, Tobias Wolff creates a sarcastically doughty character by the name of Anders. However, it becomes transparent that beneath this stone-cold portrayal of a man resides a troubled past. Throughout the story, Ander’s life struggles slowly begin to show through the cracks, giving the reader insight into what has turned him into such a hateful man. Another interesting character in the story is the man who takes charge of the robbery. He remains unnamed for the entirety of the happenings, and, although he is not alone in committing this crime, plays an important role in framing the theme of Wolff’s work. Wolff uses literary strategies such as imagery and extreme detail to pull the reader into the story, lock in their attention, and relate the symbolism and emotion of what’s happening. These devices have a great effect on the story.
“Dignity is a state of physical, emotional and spiritual comfort, with each individual valued for his or her uniqueness and his or her individuality celebrated. Dignity is promoted when individuals are enabled to do the best within their capabilities, exercise control, make choices and feel involved in the decision-making that underpins their care.”
The madman that speaks through the entire story talks in an unreliable first person view. Because of the man?s obvious
Bateman is in a way sickened by the everyday all-American life he leads, while the reader is sickened by the flip side of Patrick Bateman.
In everyone’s life there is a moment that is so dreadful and horrific that it is best to try to push it further and further back into your mind. When traumatized by death for example it is very natural to shut off the memory in order to self-defense suppresses the awful emotional experience. Very often it is thoughtful that this neglecting and abandoning is the best way to forget. In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, memory is depicted as a dangerous and deliberating faculty of human consciousness. In this novel Sethe endures the oppression of self imposed prison of memory by revising the past and death of her daughter Beloved, her mother and Baby Suggs. In Louise Erdrich’s
When the narrator relays the story the reader learns that he is awaiting execution for the murder of his wife (Piacentino 2). French critic Gerard Genette who specializes in the study of narrative theory notes “narration always says less than it knows, but it often makes known more then it says” (Piacentino 2). This is true of the autobiographical narrative of The Black Cat. The narrator is trying to present himself as a calm man with self control, however the more he talks the more he leaks his insanity. He offers rationalizations for his past actions, and facts about his childhood. The narrator, by the end of the story, has revealed himself to be a vicious and violent abuser of animals and people alike. He