Memory - unreliable Narration

Question 1

the reader infers his feelings from other characters comments about him not from his own words; does not want the audience to know that he is expressing genuine and biological human emotion.

Answer 1

“you look at though you’re crying”

“… I say Stevens are you alright?” “I say Stevens are you sure you’re all right there?” (page 108-109) about his father’s death.

Question 2

First person narrative

Answer 2

‘Things are like memory, how one uses memory for one’s own purposes, one’s own ends, those things interest me…deeply. And so, for the time being, I’m going to stick with the first person, and develop the business about following somebody’s thoughts around, as they try to trip themselves up or hind from themselves.’ Ish

Question 3

Definition of an unreliable narrator

Answer 3

‘Narrator’s account is at odds with the implied reader’s surmises about the story’s real intentions’ Chatman

‘misreporting of events’

Question 4

Stevens is an … narrator to the … reader

Answer 4

unreliable narrator. The UR is an ironic form…

The implied reader - another butler. This reader senses a discrepancy between a reasonable reconstruction of the story and the account given by the narrator. Two sets of forms conflict, and the covert set, once recognised, must win.

However, there is an implied narrator that gives the reader insight into the reality of the situation.

‘The implied author has established a secret communication with the implied reader.’ Chatman

Question 5

the implied reader and narrator

Answer 5

‘silently nudging one another in the ribs at the folly and delusion of the narrator.’
reader is expected to have knowledge of the context