The Study On The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd From Perspective Of Unreliable Narration

Combined with unreliable narration theorized by James Phelan,this thesis attempts to make an analysis on The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,under the pen of Agatha Christie,the celebrated detective fiction writer in Britain.The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is generally known not only for complicated and absorbing detective plots,but also for elaborate narrative technique-learning the criminal impetus and psychology from the unreliable narrator's point of view.With the exposure of unreliable narrator and implied author,this paper reveals the unreliability along facts/events axis,values/ethics axis and knowledge/perception axis,and misreporting,misregarding and misreading of unreliable narrator.On account of that,this paper draws a conclusion that Agatha Christie artfully uses unreliable narration in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and renders suspenseful detective plots,putting forward a distinctive point of view to further understand detective fiction.This paper comprises five chapters in total.The first part is about the life and works of Agatha Christie,The murder of Roger Ackroyd of great importance,purpose and significance of this paper.In the second chapter,studies on Agatha Christie's detective fiction at home and abroad are explored,especially The murder of Roger Ackroyd,further indicating the valuable concept of unreliable narration in the perusal of this detective fiction.Theoretical framework,which is necessarily founded in third chapter,presents the development of unreliable narration at length,peculiarly the supplements of James Phelan.The fourth part is taken up for sufficiently interpreting unreliable narrator and the implied author in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,with the implements of three axes and six subtypes brought about by Phelan.The conclusive section tends to summarize the thorough interpretation of unreliable narration in this novel via theoretical structure of James Phelan,stressing the significance of unreliability for analyzing detective fiction in further discussion.