Exploration On The Aesthetic Effects Of Unreliable Narration

Ian McEwan, a renowned British writer, is well acknowledged to be a master ofnarrative skills. He takes delight in exploring the horrible and degenerate survival state of themodern people in the novels and exposing the lack and distortion of various ethicaldimensions through the absurd narration of the human nature. According to the survey, mostscholars have studied McEwan’s novels from feminism, growth theme and other aspects,while studies from the unreliable narration are comparatively less. Even if they do, the criticsmainly concentrate on the first person unreliable narration but fail to pay sufficient attentionto the third person unreliable narration caused by the characters’ misleading vision andperception. What is more, the studies on the aesthetic reading effects of these two types ofunreliable narration are rare.Though the unreliable narration has been widely used in the theoretical discussions andtext analysis from home and abroad, the comprehensive studies of its application inMcEwan’s works are few. Therefore, there are two purposes the thesis wants to achieve:firstly, to cover the shortage of only concentrating on the first person unreliable narration andat the same time pay attention to the third person unreliable narration caused by thecharacters’ misleading vision and perception; secondly, to study the aesthetic reading effectslike irony and sympathy produced by these two kinds of unreliable narration to enrich thestudy of McEwan in China.Therefore this thesis attempts to explore the different kinds of unreliable narration andthe aesthetic reading effects in McEwan’s The Cement Garden and Solar. The concepts of theunreliable narration and the implied author are put forward by Wayne Booth in the first place.Afterwards, James Phelan subdivides the unreliable narration into six types. Later, Shen Danadds that the unreliable narration caused by the character’s subjective perception andinterpretation often occurs in the third person narration and thus always neglected by thecritics. With the unreliable narrative theory of Wayne Booth, James Phelan and Shen Dan, itanalyzes the first person unreliable narration in The Cement Garden from three aspects, i.e. the unreliable narration about parents and children, the unreliable narration about brothersand sisters, the unreliable narration about the social relationship；it also expounds the thirdperson unreliable narration in Solar, caused by the contrast between the objective observationthrough the external perspective and the subjective interpretation through the internalperspective, from three aspects, i.e. the unreliable narration about marriage, profession,relatives and friends. Finally, it probes into the different manifestations of the aestheticreading effects of such unreliable narration——irony and sympathy. The first personunreliable narration is obvious in The Cement Garden. So readers tend to stand on theimplied author’s side and laugh at the ignorance, self-centeredness of the narrator, but theyalso feel sorry for this troubled and suffering protagonist. The third person unreliablenarration is relatively difficult to detect in Solar. When readers realize they are deceived, theyare prone to agree with the reliable narrator outside the story and the unreliable character isridiculed. But readers would still feel pity for the moral degradation of this imperfectprotagonist Beard.Through the analysis of McEwan’s two novels from the perspective of the unreliablenarration, it proves that there are different manifestations between the first person unreliablenarration and the third person unreliable narration and their aesthetic reading effects.