Exegesis
Doctorate in Communication
University of Canberra
Alyssa Brugman
Qualities of Friendship
Unreliable Narration in Young Adult Fiction
Abstract
Why is a young adult character’s unreliability a useful narrative strategy in one novel and a
hindrance in another? Is the writer’s allegiance to the reader or to the character they create?
These are questions specific to young adult fiction, since the protagonist is inherently
unreliable, and the readers are generally inexperienced interpreters of narrative strategies.
This research seeks to identify narrative devices from the field of narratology, and determine
how they can be used to address the limitations of unreliable narrators in young adult fiction.
Five texts have been examined for specific narrative strategies, identified in the structural
narratology literature (among these - frequency, anachrony, embedded text, metafiction, and
assigning a narratee).
Three theorists were particularly inspiring for this research. Many of the texts in narratology
do not address the actual author, but instead focus on the reader’s interpretation of the text.
Concepts put forward by Wayne Booth, Mike Cadden and Theresa Hyde each influenced this
research, having perspectives on the obligations of the author to their readership.
A number of tactics have been identified in the texts that do not appear in the narratology
literature, or seem to have the opposite effect to that which the literature would indicate.
The exegesis discusses these narrative strategies and how they contribute to overcoming the
limitations of unreliable narrators in young adult fiction. An accompanying manuscript
demonstrates some of the strategies discussed in the exegesis.
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Prefatory comments
This research was carried out under the guidance of Emeritus Professor Belle Alderman. I am
very grateful for her ongoing support.
Many thanks to the other members of my supervisory panel, Dr Jennifer Webb and Dr
Anthony Eaton. I would also like to thank the members of the panels who assessed the
progress seminars of this research for their advice, Dr Christine Trimmingham Jack, Dr
Jordan Williams and Dr John Cohen.
Thanks to Rosalind Price and Mike Shuttleworth who supported my initial application to
pursue postgraduate studies at the University of Canberra.
As an off-campus student I am also indebted to the library staff at the University of Canberra
who always sent me resources swiftly and without incident.
I would also like to express my gratitude to my partner Chris Watts for his unwavering
confidence in me, and to my children Isaac, Theodore and Scarlett for being so patient.
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Table of Contents
1.
Introduction ____________________________________________________________ 1
A Young Adult (YA) predicament ___________________________________ 3
Aim ___________________________________________________________ 9
Overview of the study _____________________________________________ 9
Contribution of this research _______________________________________ 10
2.
Section One - Background________________________________________________ 11
Young adult fiction ______________________________________________ 12
Narratology ____________________________________________________ 22
Narratology – structural, postclassical, poststructural ___________________ 24
Key Narrative Devices ___________________________________________ 27
Unreliable Narration and Implied Author __________________________________ 27
Dramatic irony and distance ____________________________________________ 30
Embedded text (levels in narrative) ______________________________________ 32
Secondary fabula explains ______________________________________________ 32
Secondary fabula resembles ____________________________________________ 33
Focalisation _________________________________________________________ 33
Slant and Filter ______________________________________________________ 34
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Multiple focalisation __________________________________________________ 34
Anachrony and ordering of events _______________________________________ 36
Metafiction, metanarrative and metalepsis _________________________________ 37
Dissertations – narratology and young adult fiction _____________________ 39
Ethics and Unreliable Narrators ____________________________________ 45
Mike Cadden -"The Irony of Narration in the Young Adult Novel" 2000 _________ 45
Wayne Booth – The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction 1988 ____________ 47
3.
Section two – Research Design ____________________________________________ 53
Why I have chosen the structural approach ___________________________ 54
Selection of texts for close study____________________________________ 55
4.
Section three - Examination of Selected Texts ________________________________ 60
Elizabeth Fensham – ‘Helicopter Man’ ______________________________ 61
Narrative Strategies Applied ____________________________________________ 61
Unreliable narration – withholding information _____________________________ 62
Filter and the narratee _________________________________________________ 66
Anachrony – order of events ____________________________________________ 68
Embedded text _______________________________________________________ 72
Other techniques _____________________________________________________ 74
Lessons from Helicopter Man ___________________________________________ 78
Melina Marchetta – ‘Saving Francesca’ ______________________________ 80
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Narrative Strategies Applied ____________________________________________ 80
Acknowledging a ‘you’ and forms of unreliability ___________________________ 81
Unreliability in relation to static minor characters ___________________________ 84
Tense and frequency __________________________________________________ 84
Secondary and Tertiary Fabulas – rescues, word choice and ways to be a woman __ 88
Lessons from Saving Francesca _________________________________________ 96
Cassandra Golds – ‘The Museum of Mary Child’ ______________________ 98
Unreliable Narration and Point of View ___________________________________ 99
Metafiction ________________________________________________________ 102
Willing suspension of disbelief - making the implausible plausible _____________ 104
Motifs and repetitions ________________________________________________ 107
Dolls _____________________________________________________________ 108
Prisons and cages ___________________________________________________ 110
Lessons from ‘The Museum of Mary Child’ ______________________________ 112
Ursula Dubosarsky – ‘The Red Shoe’ _______________________________ 114
Narrative Strategies Applied ___________________________________________ 116
Ways Matilda is unreliable ____________________________________________ 117
Temporal techniques _________________________________________________ 119
Embedded Text – The Fairytale and Symbols _____________________________ 120
Embedded text - The Petrov Affair and Newspaper Articles __________________ 122
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Multiple focalisation _________________________________________________ 124
Floreal – an adult consciousness ________________________________________ 126
Lessons from ‘The Red Shoe’ __________________________________________ 130
Justine Larbalestier - ‘Liar’ _______________________________________ 133
Ways in which Micah is unreliable ______________________________________ 135
Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Fabulas _________________________________ 136
Absence of the implied author _________________________________________ 137
Author colluding in the unreliability _____________________________________ 138
Metafiction ________________________________________________________ 142
Lessons from ‘Liar’ __________________________________________________ 144
5.
Conclusions __________________________________________________________ 146
Ways that characters were unreliable in the selected texts ____________________ 149
Temporal techniques _________________________________________________ 151
Point of view _______________________________________________________ 153
Symbols, motifs and embedded text _____________________________________ 155
Situating the Creative Work within Young Adult Fiction ____________________ 157
6.
References ___________________________________________________________ 166
Appendix A – Review of ‘Girl Next Door’___________________________ 174
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