Unreliable narration and (Dis-)orientation in the postmodern neo-gothic novel: reflections on Patrick McGrath's "The Grotesque" (1989)

• Autores: Heinz Antor
• Localización: Miscelánea: A journal of english and american studies, ISSN 1137-6368, ISSN-e 2386-4834, Nº 24, 2001, págs. 11-38
• Idioma: español
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• Resumen

  • This article analyses the forms and functions of unreliable narration in a postmodern neogothic novel and thus tries to view the phenomenon of the unreliable narrator not merely from the point of view of the narratologist intending to devise a watertight descriptive definition of the technique and to place it consistently within a conceptual framwork. Rather, narratology and cultural studies are to be brought together here in an attempt at determining the cultural functions of a special form of narrative in a historical situation often described as plural, fragmented and devoid of a centre, i.e. one creating problems of orientation. Unreliable narration thus turns out to be a useful tool in the artistic process of coping with the postmodern condition.