A Study Of The Unreliable Narration In To Kill A Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird is Harper Lee’s only full-length novel which centers on the storythat happened in an American Southern small town. The story is told by one of the maincharacters named Scott, a six-year-old girl. Narratorial unreliability is one of the distinctivefeatures of the novel. This paper is an attempt to probe into the unreliable narration in thisnovel by the application of the theories of Phelan, who identifies six types of unreliabilitywhich fall into three axes, i.e. on the axis of facts and events; on the axis of ethics and values;and on the axis of knowledge and perception, each of which is dealt with in a separatechapter.In Chapter One, the unreliable narration on the axis of facts and events is discussed. Scout,the narrator, often makes misreporting or underreporting while narrating the story. Misreportingmainly occurs in the depiction of the strange character Boo, who is shown to the reader as aninvisible ghost until the end of the novel. Then in the later part of the chapter, examples onunderreporting are provided. Misreporting helps to create mystery and cloak the plot in a gothicatmosphere, while underreporting constantly keeps the readers in a state of suspense. Bothmisreporting and underreporting effectively call for the readers’ active involvement in thereading process, thus bring readers more pleasure in reading the novel.Chapter Two explores the unreliable narration on the axis of ethics and values. Thenarrator’s wrong judgment is compared with the right judgment of the implied author. Bothmisregarding and underregarding of the narrator open up gaps for the reader in his evaluationof the events and characters, which have to be filled by the reader’s own judgment. They playan important role in the development of the themes of the novel.Chapter Three studies the unreliable narration on the axis of knowledge and perception.When the narrator has wrong or insufficient knowledge, she may misread or underread thecharacters and events. However, other channels and sources can compensate the reader forthis insufficiency of information. In this way, the diverse aspects of the characters are revealed.This way of characterization can leave more indelible impression on the readers.From the analysis, the paper comes to the conclusion that unreliable narration in To Kill a Mockingbird is an effective technique to establish moods, to present characters andsituation and to aid the development of the themes. Narratorial unreliability contributes muchto the success and popularity of this novel.