A Case Study Of Unreliable Narration In Moll Flanders And Pamela

Modern narratology originated from French Structuralism in1960s. It flourished after the1990s and now has become one of the most popular subjects in literature study. Unreliable narration as a very significant concept and narrative strategy in narratology was first put forward by Wayne C. Booth in his monograph, The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961). Then it became a hot topic in the field. This thesis intends to apply the theories of unreliable narration, and other related narratological theories of implied author, narrator, and character narrator to the analysis of the two18th century British novels, Moll Flanders and Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded. At the same time the thesis is going to give a detailed explanation on the existence of the unreliable narration technique and its application, in order to help the readers understand the two18th century classical novels from a modern narratology perspective.To begin with, the thesis briefly introduces the background information, the opinions of the two approaches and the current study of unreliable narration; Then the main part of the paper analyzes the typical cases in the two works and explores the relationship among the implied author, character narrator and the reader, discussing Phelan’s axes and subtypes of unreliable narration; At last the concluding part points out the contributions and limitations of this thesis and it may shed lights on future studies of the two novels from the narrative aspect.