| Faulkner is considered as the great experimenter in writing technique in the20thcentury. The Sound and the Fury, the masterpiece of his full-length novels, hasattracted much attention from both home and abroad since it came out. The scholarsmainly focus on the techniques used in the novel, such as chronological disorder,various points of view, stream of consciousness and unreliable narration. In terms ofunreliable narration, the past studies mainly concentrate on its function. While thisdissertation employs rhetorical theories of unreliable narration to fully analyze thereliability hidden in unreliable narration, discover the factors for unreliable narrationand point out the rhetorical effects of unreliable narration in The Sound and the Fury.Narratology has been favored by literature critics since it became an independentsubject and it reaches its peak in the new century. Unreliable narration, put forwardfirstly by Wayne·C·Booth, remains one of the most important theories in narratology.According to Booth, it is reliable if what the narrator says conforms to the impliedauthor’s norms, conversely, it is unreliable if not. James Phelan inherits and developsBooth’s theory, classifying unreliable narration into three axes(adding axis ofknowledge/perception to the original axis of facts/events and of values/judgments) andsix subtypes. He also points out that reliability and unreliability are not opposite butchangeable, namely, reliability can be contained in unreliable narration. As to theprocess of reading, Phelan holds that it is actually the process of a secretcommunication between readers and implied author behind narrator’s back.Unreliable narration, implied author, distance and irony are the essentialconceptions of this dissertation. This dissertation tries to discuss profoundly theunreliable narration in The Sound and the Fury.This dissertation totally falls into seven chapters. The first chapter mainlyintroduces the research background, the research purpose and the structure of thisdissertation.Chapter Two focuses on the development of narratology and the studies onunreliable narration and on The Sound and the Fury both at home and abroad.Chapter Three is the theoretical basis. Several conceptions related to unreliablenarration, such as narrator, author, reader, implied author and and implied reader areintroduced. The rest two parts focus respectively on Booth’s and Phelan’s theories onunreliable narration. Chapter Four focuses on the unreliable narration in The Sound and the Fury. Theauthor of the study holds that among the three unreliable narrators in the fiction,Benjy’s unreliable narration mainly occurs along the axis of facts/events, but reliableon other two axes. Quentin’s unreliable narration happens on the axis ofknowledge/perception, but reliable on facts/events and evaluation/judgment. Jason’sunreliable narration mostly takes place on the axis of evaluation/judgment, but reliableon the axis of facts/events. In short, there exists reliability in their unreliable narration.Chapter Five tries to discover the factors for unreliable narration from three majoraspects. First, the first-person narrator. As a first-person narrator, he/she is also thecharacter in the story, so, inevitably, he/she takes his personal emotion and even biasinto the narration, in which case, unreliable narration arises. Second, the distancebetween narrator and implied author. Implied author hides himself behind the screenand has a secret communication with readers, in which case, the narrator’sunreliability is exposed. The third factor is narrator’s personal background. All thethree narrators have their own specific background contributing to their unreliablenarration to some extent.Chapter Six focuses on the functions and effects of unreliable narration, includingthree aspects--creating irony, shaping characters and producing aesthetic effects.Chapter Seven is conclusions of the whole dissertation. Firstly, there indeed existsreliability in unreliable narration. Unreliable narration does not necessarily occur onall the three axes at the same time. It may be unreliable on one or two axes, butreliable on others. Second, first-person narrator, control of the distance among theimplied author, narrator and reader, and personal background are all factorsaccounting for unreliable narration. Thirdly, unreliable narration can achieve to createironies, picture characters, and gain great aesthetic effects. |
