A Study On Unreliable Narrative In Ouyang Zi’s Novels

Autumn Leaves,a collection of novels written by Ouyang Zi,a modernist writer in Taiwan,has attracted attention for its controversial theme and content.However,the form of the novel which the author painstakingly developed has not been paid enough attention by researchers.Focusing on the protagonist’s consciousness,Ouyang Zi makes the text run through the flow of inner consciousness and subjective assumption.At the same time,she tries to temporarily deceive the readers through calm brushwork,and finally makes part of the narrative show the conflict with the overall picture of the event.This is the narrative style of Ouyang Zi’s novels,and also a typical feature of unreliable narration.Ouyang Zi’s novels can be divided into two modes: the first person narration and the third person limited perspective narration.In the first person narrative text,unreliable narration is often caused by the narrator,which manifests itself in three forms:narrators for children,narrators for women and narrative polyphony.Innocent children and lovelorn women add unreliable colors to narrative discourse due to their limited knowledge and strong subjective emotions,while polyphonic novels express the contradictions between each other through the pluralism and opposition of narrating voices.Compared with the first-person self-pouring narration,Ouyang Zi expresses a preference for the third-person narration with cool reasoning.When the narrator almost does not appear,how to reflect the contradiction with the implied author becomes a complex problem in the study of unreliable narrative,and is also one of the key points in the study of Ouyang Zi’s novels.In terms of perspective,Ouyang Zi uses "single point of view" to promote the fallacy of characters.In the aspect of narrative subject,the consciousness and the speech of the character become the concrete form of filling the personality of the narrator within the narrative frame.As far as the structure is concerned,the unreliable narrative is highlighted and corrected in the contrast between memory and reality as well as the symbolic dualistic dialogue.The unreliability of the third person character’s limited perspective narration is realized by various narrative strategies.The analysis of the unreliable narration in Ouyang Zi’s novels not only plays a supplementary role in the study of the writer’s artistic skills,but also reexamines the potential discourse of the novels.Firstly,in the 1960 s,Taiwan modernist writers,restricted by political factors,turned their creation to the psychological level.The interpretation of the numerous "mists" set by Ouyang Zi in her novels is aimed to reveal the existential dilemma and identity crisis of the characters.Secondly,Ouyang Zi pays special attention to women’s desire,destiny and status.In her works,she emphasizes women’s spiritual independence and reconstruction of discourse power.Unreliable narration becomes an important means to write women’s unique inner experience.Thirdly,Ouyang Zi’s grasp of the narrative distance and the loopholes of deliberate arrangement reflects the author’s attitude on the moral level.Due to her deep understanding of the complexity of human nature,she has a reflection on the established standards of society.Unreliable narrative provides an appropriate form for the theme Ouyang Zi intends to express,which shows the harmony between form and content in the novel.Ouyang-Zi’s assimilation and transformation of the techniques and themes of western modernism have made a valuable contribution to Taiwan’s literary circle which is seeking for new changes.