Narratologists remain divided over how and if narrative unreliability works in literary dream sequences. Many believe that Wayne C. Booth’s idea of unreliable narration as a “secret communion” of author and reader “behind the narrator’s back” does not extend to surrealistic prose styles, in which Booth claimed “the author and reader may meet, like Voltaire and God, but they do not speak”. While recent scholarship has challenged this notion, few studies have examined how traditional norms of unreliability might function within literary dream logic specifically. My paper aims to reconcile these approaches, using as a case study Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel The Unconsoled (1995), a text unique in pairing dream prose with a narrator whose self-deception exemplifies the ironic gap central to unreliable narration. Employing theories of unreliability, narrative processing, and dream interpretation, I analyse the relationship between dream logic and narrative structures in The Unconsoled. I argue these dream laws come to signify the narrator’s self-deception, rendering his account suspect as an alternative, ironic account emerges in its shadow. Examining these concepts together illuminates how unreliability might operate outside conventional realism while showcasing how dreams can function as literary devices within one of the most enduring frameworks in narratology.
Saying that a proposed high school African American Advanced Placement (AP) course “lacks educational value,” Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is defending its rejection of the curriculum, while Black religious leaders
Egeria presents the Interview with P.S. Menconi, author of Oriental Bedtime Tales, a beautiful collection of 15 unpublished fairy tales: a magical journey into millenary oriental culture. Available on Amazon.
NEW YORK—Managing to evoke unparalleled feelings of pity and fear in its audience, a fundraising email sent Wednesday from local theater company The Calliope Players was reportedly far more tragic than any of the plays it had ever produced. “It’s been a very challenging year, but we believe in our mission of hybrid…
Screenshot: HBO
Once people born in the early-to-mid ‘80s started having fits on TikTok over literal children telling them their hairstyles were dated, it was only a matter of time before the internet coalesced around the term “geriatric millennial” as part of our larger conversation about the current generation of 25-to-35-year-olds.
Advertisement
The devastating thing about midlife crises (and their premature counterparts) is that while they may be set off by external facts (slick-mouth youths, taxes, pandemics), they’re always really about something that’s going on inside, no matter how much a person might not want to admit it. It can be difficult to explain this reality to people who don’t want to hear it, which is exactly why beings like