Portrait of an Unreliable Narrator in the Narrative of I Am Probably Lost

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Ph.D Candidate of English Language and Literature, Faculty Member at the Department of English Language and Literature, Karadeniz Technical University (Corresponding Author)

2 Ph.D Candidate of English Language and Literature, Karadeniz Technical University

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Abstract

This paper aims to study the reasons for the first-person narrator’s unreliability in
Sarah Salar’s novella I’m Probably Lost based on the theory of Shlomith Rimmon-
Kenan. According to her theory, a narrator’s limited knowledge, his/ her selfinvolvement
in the narrative, and also his/her paradoxical value-scheme are some of
the textual evidences that can be taken as the reasons for his/her unreliability in a
particular narrative. Thus, the present study firstly attempts to show that the narrator’s
narration in I’m Probably Lost is so incongruent with the events of the fictional world
that one can hardly believe her words as standing for the fictional facts. Further,
because of her personal fears and weak memory (psychological states) the narrator has
got limited knowledge to report the fictional events accurately. The paper also argues
that the narrator fails to report the fictional facts impartially because of her selfinvolvement
along with her paradoxical value-schemes. Therefore, by restricting the
narration to her own perspective or by inverting many of these facts, the narrator
reports the fictional events as she wishes not as they actually might have happened.
Furthermore, in its opening, the paper provides a short theoretical background to the
discussion concerned with the (un)reliability of a narrator in narratology.

Keywords

References

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