TRABAJO FIN DE GRADO
Título
Lie to me: The Unreliable narrator as creator of identities
Autor/es
Alicia Muro Llorente
Director/es
María del Mar Asensio Aróstegui
Facultad
Facultad de Letras y de la Educación
Titulación
Grado en Estudios Ingleses
Departamento
Curso Académico
2015-2016
Lie to me: The Unreliable narrator as creator of identities, trabajo fin de grado
de Alicia Muro Llorente, dirigido por María del Mar Asensio Aróstegui (publicado por la
Universidad de La Rioja), se difunde bajo una Licencia
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Permisos que vayan más allá de lo cubierto por esta licencia pueden solicitarse a los
titulares del copyright.
©
©
El autor
Universidad de La Rioja, Servicio de Publicaciones,
publicaciones.unirioja.es
E-mail: [email protected]
Trabajo de Fin de Grado
LIE TO ME: THE UNRELIABLE
NARRATOR AS CREATOR OF
IDENTITIES
Autor:
ALICIA MURO LLORENTE
Tutor/es:
Fdo.
María del Mar Asensio Aróstegui
Titulación: Grado en Estudios Ingleses [601G]
Facultad de Letras y de la Educación
AÑO ACADÉMICO: 2015/2016
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ABSTRACT: The role of the unreliable narrator in contemporary literature is gathering
strength, especially as creator of identities through fiction. The narrators of Ian
McEwan’s Atonement and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl become “authors” of their own
texts, with the aim of creating alternative identities and realities for themselves and for
those around them. This study will carry out an analysis of the figure of the unreliable
narrator in the two novels aforementioned, paying attention to its cause, purpose and
consequences. Issues of metafiction, self-reflexivity or focalization will also be
explored in this dissertation, along with the embedded texts encompassed within the
main narrative or the different personalities that the characters perform.
KEY WORDS:
(un)reliable narrator – identity – metafiction – intertextuality –
reader – focalization – reality.
RESUMEN: El papel del narrador no fiable en la literatura contemporánea está
ganando fuerza, especialmente como creador de identidades a través de la ficción. Los
narradores de Atonement, de Ian McEwan, y Gone Girl, de Gillian Flynn, se convierten
en “autores” de sus propios textos, con el objetivo de crear identidades y realidades
alternativas para ellos mismos y para aquellos que los rodean. Este estudio llevará a
cabo un análisis de la figura del narrador no fiable en las dos novelas mencionadas,
prestando atención a su causa, propósito y consecuencias. Aspectos relacionados con la
metaficción, la introspección o la focalización también serán explorados en este trabajo,
junto con los textos incluidos en el propio texto o las diferentes personalidades que
desempeñan los personajes.
PALABRAS CLAVE:
narrador (no) fiable – identidad – metaficción –
intertextualidad – lector – focalización – realidad.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction: Objectives and Methodology ............................................................. 7
2. WHO?: (Un)reliable narrators ................................................................................ 11
2.1. Narratological approach ....................................................................................... 11
2.2. Cause and purpose................................................................................................ 14
2.3. Consequences: the narrator and the reader........................................................... 16
3. HOW?: Metafiction .................................................................................................. 19
3.1. Gone Girl ............................................................................................................. 19
3.2. Atonement ............................................................................................................. 20
4. WHY?: Identity and Fiction .................................................................................... 27
5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 33
7. Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 35
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“First rule of storytelling:
‘Don’t believe everything you read in the papers’”
Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman (2003)
1. Introduction: Objectives and Methodology
Once upon a time, there was a land of words. There you would cross forests, oceans or
even worlds, and you would fall in love with princes and princesses. You would learn
about the epic deeds of heroes and gods, about frenetic adventures and impossible
quests, about life in countryside England or on board an American whaling ship, about
the muddy streets of London or the darker side of nature. And you would walk these
foreign lands hand in hand with a strong, confident figure that would never let you go.
There you felt safe. Nothing was hidden from you. There were no surprises, you lived
happily ever after – life was predictable.
But one day, a new ruler started reigning in this land of words, a ruler who was
aware of its power. At first, it just drew purple trees and green skies. And you saw them.
There was no reason not to trust its view. It was the only one you had. The ruler knew
the truth but would not tell. It had gone a step ahead. It was decided to trick you. And
yet you still followed its path trustfully, until you realized that it had led you to
deception. And you began to pose questions. What if the new ruler had been steering
you towards a world of shadows all along? What if it had purposefully lied to you?
I relish being surprised when I read, especially so when I read contemporary
literature. Given that we, readers, have already taken part in all the imaginable
adventures, I believe that we have reached a moment in which we need to be shocked.
This is, in my opinion, one of the reasons why the figure of the unreliable narrator and
the use of multiple focalization have gathered such strength in contemporary literature.1
Their role is basically to deceive the reader into believing a reality that will be
dismantled as the story progresses.
1
Needless to say that we can also provide the names of earlier instances like the narrators in Emily
Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847) or Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), to
mention just a couple of them.
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The main aim of this dissertation is to analyze the role of the unreliable narrator
in two of the most interesting 21st-century novels I have recently read: Ian McEwan’s
Atonement (2001) and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (2012).
Gone Girl is an American crime fiction novel that deals with the murder of Amy
Elliot Dunne. The finding of Amy’s diary together with a revealing set of clues
unequivocally point to her husband Nick as murderer. However, almost half-way
through the novel the reader suddenly learns that (spoiler alert) Amy is actually alive
and that, in fact, she is the one who has left all the clues, diary included, in order to
blame Nick for her apparent murder as a form of revenge for his infidelity. The police
and the reader, who have known about Amy’s miserable married life directly through
Amy’s own story (the entries from her diary), all of a sudden realize that she has lied to
them, since almost everything that the diary contains turns out to be false. Besides, we
are also given Nick’s perspective of the situation, based mainly on the police
investigation, the relationship with his lawyer and his own investigation about Amy’s
whereabouts.
The world depicted in Ian McEwan’s masterpiece, Atonement (2001), has also
been rewritten. Briony Tallis, aged thirteen, witnesses something she does not
understand that happens between her sister Cecilia and her (boy)friend Robbie. As a
consequence of her misreading of the incident, Briony makes a mistake that ends up
destroying the future of Cecilia and Robbie’s relationship and which she spends the rest
of her life trying to atone for. Although the story is told in the third person by an
apparently omniscient heterodiegetic narrator, in the last twenty pages of the novel, the
reader discovers that (spoiler alert) what he/she has been reading is Briony’s
autobiographical story, disguised as a third-person narrative, and made into a published
novel. What’s more, the reader also discovers that what he/she has been reading does
not even correspond to what really happened, given that Miss Tallis, the author, has
consciously altered the facts in order, firstly, to provide her sister Cecilia with the happy
ending she deserved and which Briony had denied her and, secondly, to follow at least
some of the comments and suggestions the editors of the novel had suggested needed
expanding or rewriting prior to the novel’s publication.
As this brief summary of the novels may have suggested, the role of the
unreliable narrator proves of outmost interest not only because it2 deceives the reader
2
For our purposes, I will be making reference to the narrator of the novels as “it”.
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but also, and perhaps even more importantly, because it is used to create different
identities and realities through fiction.
To carry out the analysis of the two contemporary novels aforementioned, I will
be using as a tool the narratological theories developed by Mieke Bal in Narratology:
Introduction to the Theory of Narrative (1985) and Wayne Booth in The Rhetoric of
Fiction (1961). Besides, I will be also using Patricia Waugh’s theories on metafiction,
especially as elaborated in her book Metafiction. The Theory and Practice of SelfConscious Fiction (1984), and Julia Kristeva’s concept of intertextuality in Desire in
Language: A Semiotic Approach to Language and Art (1980).
Since my main aim is to provide a practical analysis of the matter, I will base
the majority of my study on the actual interpretation of the two novels chosen.
Throughout the whole study, I will be making use of extracts from the novels in order to
support my assertions, as well as of quotations from secondary sources that have helped
me to do likewise with my statements.3
To begin with, I will be analyzing the most interesting aspects of the unreliable
narrator in both novels, especially its purpose, cause and consequences. Based on my
reading experience, I have reached the conclusion that there are at least two different
kinds of unreliable narrators. On the one hand, we could talk about an unconscious
unreliable narrator, in the sense that it may not be aware of its untrustworthiness.
According to Booth, this kind of narrator would be found in “stories narrated, whether
in the first or third person, by a profoundly confused, basically self-deceived, or even
wrong-headed or vicious reflector” (340). This would be the case of Chuck Palahniuk’s
Fight Club (1996), given that the narrator is mentally unstable in a way that makes him
unable to recognize his own trick.
On the other hand, we encounter narrators who are absolutely aware of their
deceit, like the ones found in Atonement or Gone Girl. I believe that the complexity of
this kind of narrators is greater, given that they are acting following a purpose.
Evidently, this is going to be the kind of narrator that I will be thoroughly analyzing in
this dissertation.
The concept of focalization is also related to the figure of the unreliable narrator.
Bal defines the term as “the relationship between the ‘vision’, the agent that sees, and
that which is seen” (149). In other words, the concept is linked to the ideas of
3
Given the novelty of Flynn’s Gone Girl, published in 2012, the amount of secondary sources available
about this novel is significantly lower than that of McEwan’s Atonement.
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perspective and point of view. In the case of Gone Girl, and as we will see, Amy’s is the
only perspective we get, whereas in Atonement the number of points of view increases.
The unreliable narrator has an immense impact on the reader, who is
manipulated until half of the novel in Gone Girl and until the very end of it in
Atonement. Consequently, I have dedicated a section of this dissertation to the
relationship between narrators and readers.
Another key aspect related to the unreliability of the narrator that both novels
share is metafiction. It is indubitable that both novels deal with the making of fiction
and the impact that it has on people. Patricia Waugh defines ‘metafiction’ as “a term
given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to
its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction
and reality” (Waugh 2). Both novels are constantly making reference to their
fictionality, either due to the embedded diaries or to the comments about the novel
itself, and they are also focusing on the construction of those fictions, hence dealing
with self-reflexivity. Thus, I will also be analyzing the embedded texts found in the
novels, especially in Atonement, such as the letters several characters write or Briony’s
play The Trials of Arabella.
Moreover, intertextuality is another recurrent concept related to metafiction, and
which appears particularly in McEwan’s Atonement. By ‘intertextuality’ I mean the set
of common references to other literary texts that can be found within the actual novel.
In this case, this term will help me explain the close relationship between reality and
fiction, which is an idea also present in Flynn’s Gone Girl.
Finally, the last section of this study will be devoted to explore what is, in my
opinion, the main intention of the unreliable narrator when using fiction: the creation of
alternative identities and realities. I agree with Waugh in her claim that “for
metafictional writers the most fundamental assumption is that composing a novel is
basically no different from composing or constructing one’s ‘reality’” (24). Hence, I
will analyze the different personalities that can be found especially in Gone Girl and
particularly in the character of Amy Dunne, without letting aside the creation of
identities by Briony in Atonement through the construction of her novel and other
literary texts such as The Trials of Arabella.
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2. WHO?: (Un)reliable narrators
2.1. Narratological approach:
To begin with, it should be pointed out that, in the case of Flynn’s and
McEwan’s novels, we are dealing with character-bound narrators given that they can be
identified with a character in the story. This homodiegetic narrator appears, as Mieke
Bal points out, “if the ‘I’ is to be identified with a character, hence, also an actor in the
fabula” (Bal 21). This element is more evident in Flynn’s Gone Girl, for we encounter
two first-person narrators: Amy and Nick Dunne4. Both protagonists will take turns to
relate the events from their point of view, even though that does not mean that they are
going to tell the truth – in fact, it will be quite the opposite and both narrators will be
unreliable.
In Atonement, the figure of the narrator is more complex. We find a third-person
reliable narrator until the final coda of the novel, where we face a first-person unreliable
narrator. Besides, the ending of the novel will reveal to the reader the final twist: the
fact that what we have been reading is actually a novel written by Briony Tallis.
Therefore the narrator of parts One, Two and Three is the narrator of Briony’s novel but
not a character-bound narrator, as we will find in the epilogue.
This is when things begin to get complicated due to the different layers of
narration found in Atonement. In fact, we should talk about two different texts:
McEwan’s Atonement and Briony Tallis’s Atonement. We have to bear clearly in mind
that Briony Tallis is the author of Atonement (parts One, Two and Three) but not
necessarily its narrator, an outsider in this case. Thus, I believe the most accurate
description for the narrator of most part of the novel will be that of an heterodiegetic
omniscient narrator. Even though we know that Briony is the author and that she did not
have access to the characters’ minds (because they were real people, she actually was
part of the story), the narrator of her novel is an omniscient one because it does enter
their thoughts. What is more, the narrator of Briony’s story is reliable because, within
Briony’s novel, the narrator is telling the truth. If it were not for the epilogue of the
novel, we would trust the omniscient narrator, given that it presents evidence and proof
4
Some critics distinguish three narrators: Nick, Diary Amy and Actual Amy (Folsberg and Nielsen 56),
but I will keep making reference to two narrators: Nick and Amy (understanding Diary Amy as one of the
derivatives from Amy herself, as I will analyze in section 4. WHY?: Identity and Fiction).
11
of its truth: we are told the events from different perspectives and evidence in form of
letters supporting those events is also introduced. Besides, the narrator is not an
obtrusive one, for the characters speak their minds in a free indirect discourse, without
the intrusion of the narrator, and therefore this element adds more authenticity to
Briony’s novel.5 Taking everything into account, that sense of certainty is made
absolutely on purpose by Briony, because she wants the reader to misinterpret the
narrative; therefore she cannot be judged for committing the same prejudices as the
reader does, as we will comment later on.
Thus, Briony (as an author and as the narrator of the epilogue) is unreliable not
only because she is altering the facts of the actual story (she makes up the reunion
between herself, Cecilia and Robbie, for instance) but also because she improvises the
thoughts and actions of the rest of the characters in the creation of her novel. When we
reach the final coda, we are forced to reinterpret everything we had been reading, and
the final twist turns the previous narrative into an unreliable account of the events (from
the point of view of Briony’s novel as almost a biography of the Tallis’s family and not
from the perspective of Briony’s story as a novel in itself). Furthermore, the first-person
narrator to be found in the epilogue of the novel (Briony once again) is also unreliable
because she does not state clear answers about the actual truth of the story. She openly
implies that Robbie and Cecilia died before they could be reunited, but she also leaves
the door open for a different interpretation, in which the lovers are brought together
once again and live happily ever after. However, even though the novel ends in an open
manner, the reader is left with a bittersweet taste, for he/she is able to guess the actual
truth:
I know there’s always a certain kind of reader who will be compelled to ask, But what
really happened? The answer is simple: the lovers survive and flourish. As long as there
is a single copy, a solitary typescript of my final draft, then my spontaneous, fortuitous
sister and her medical prince survive to love (371).
5
This notwithstanding, I believe that we could also consider the narrator of Briony’s Atonement as
unreliable if we understand the narrative as a biography of the Tallis’s family, as we will discuss next. In
this regard, Miller decidedly defends that what we have been reading in the three main parts of the novel
“is not Ian McEwan or his invented telepathic reliable narrator. It is an invented narrative by a fictive
character, Briony Tallis herself. She turns out to be a thoroughly unreliable narrator” (Miller 99, my
emphasis). To my mind, however, a more accurate term to describe Briony’s role would be that of
‘unreliable author’, given that I do not understand Briony as the narrator of her own narrative, as I have
already explained.
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Along the same train of thought, in Atonement focalization is one of its most
interesting features. Even though in the first three parts of the novel we encounter only
one narrator, it offers many different perspectives of the same events. We have access to
Cecilia’s, Robbie’s, Briony’s and even Mrs. Tallis’s points of view, and each vision will
be extremely important. Finney argues that Briony does so partly “to demonstrate the
adult Briony’s attempt to project herself into the thoughts and feelings of her characters,
an act that is crucial to her search for forgiveness” (Finney 75). Briony’s sin was
precisely her incapability of putting herself in other people’s shoes and therefore being
unable to see things from different perspectives and points of view. In her narrative, she
will compensate that flaw by entering other characters’ thoughts and feelings. In a way,
even though it makes the narrative slower, this technique allows the reader to achieve a
wider and more accurate depiction of reality – although not every perspective provides a
true angle to that reality. Therefore, with her novel “Briony seeks to retell their story
with the compassion and understanding that she lacked as a thirteen-year-old girl”
(Finney 81). In this sense, the modernist technique of providing different perspectives is
performed with the purpose of trying to empathize with her characters, to try to
understand them, and to not only believe her eyes as she did when she was young.
Briony, therefore, wants to state clearly that she had been mistaken all along and that
she did not act out of malice.
In Gone Girl, Amy’s unreliability as narrator is to be primarily found in her
diary, in which she reinterprets past events of her marriage as she likes. However, her
narrative from Part Two onwards is the actual account of the events and thus she
becomes a reliable narrator –or so it seems, because we should bear in mind that Amy is
a mentally unstable woman, and therefore we should be careful about everything she
states.6 Moreover, we can also consider Amy as unreliable in the clues that she leaves
for her husband, because she is being persuasive and manipulative once again. She is
trying to make him believe that she loves him and wants to find a solution for their
marital crisis, whilst what she actually wants is to destroy him slow and mercilessly.
Nick is also unreliable given that he omits details and important information
from the reader in order to seem less guilty. For instance, the reader only knows about
6
It is not random that Part Two is called “Boy Meets Girl”, for it is here where we will meet Amy’s truest
self, as we will analyze in section 4. WHY?: Identity and Fiction.
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the existence of Nick’s lover half way through Part One, when she enters the narrative
and there is no way to hide her any longer. Despite of his phone ringing many times,
Nick lies to the rest of the characters about it, just as he deceives the reader until there is
no possible way to keep on lying: “Now is the part where I tell you I have a mistress
and you stop liking me” (161). Besides, Nick is not a very stable character either, given
that he stays by Amy’s side despite everything she has done, therefore we should also
be cautious about his narrative. In a way, he, like Amy, also has a (less obvious) mental
disorder, therefore if he has also lied before, why not now? Furthermore, both Nick and
Amy are untrustworthy not only in their narratives but also in their actions and
statements, as in their interviews with the police, on TV, etc. for, as Nick says, “It was
my fifth lie to the police. I was just starting.” (42)
2.2. Cause and purpose:
The unreliability of the narrator in these novels is not without a cause, a purpose
and some consequences, for we are dealing here with consciously unreliable narrators.
We should bear in mind that the cause for the deceivable narrators both in Gone Girl
and in Atonement has to do mainly with the obsessive behavior of the characters and the
role of fiction in their lives. Amy is said several times throughout Gone Girl to be
cunning and manipulative, as it is proved by the fact that she spends years planning her
revenge, the perfect crime. As Folsberg and Nielsen put it, Amy is driven by “her
obsession with winning, with being the very best at everything; with essentially being
Amazing Amy” (64). In Atonement, Briony was also moved by her desire for control:
“[Briony] was one of those children possessed by a desire to have the world just so. […]
Briony’s [room] was a shrine to her controlling demon” (4-5). This longing for control
is what drives her to cast aside her play, and theatre in general, in order to favour the
novel. As she says, a novel is a “neat, limited and controllable form […]. In a story you
only had to wish, you only had to write it down and you could have the world” (37, my
emphasis), unlike in drama, where Briony is not able to control characters, actors or
even the performance.
Therefore, Briony’s novel is a consequence of this desire for control and it
shows her purpose, that “the weary self-evident world [can] be re-invented by a child”
(68). With her novel, she wants to achieve a purer aim than Amy (perhaps not less
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guilty though): she wishes to atone, to ask for forgiveness, to make amends for the sins
committed. Nonetheless, it is uncertain whether Briony achieves her goal or not.
Perhaps she does, she elaborates a happy ending for her sister and is thus able to die in
peace; however, even though she is able to apologize, by the end of the novel she has
not been forgiven.
In Gone Girl, the falsity of Amy’s diary is key to the development of the novel.
Amy Dunne writes untruthful entries in her diary in order to frame her husband Nick for
her murder, in order to punish him for having an extramarital affair. Her diary is
intended for the police who, because of Amy’s treacherous lies, will find Nick guilty of
murder: “I began to think of a different story, a better story, that would destroy Nick for
doing this to me. A story that would restore my perfection. It would make me the hero,
flawless and adored” (Flynn 263). Nick’s unreliability is, however, towards the opposite
reaction: he hides information from the police in order to appear innocent.
The untrustworthiness of Amy as narrator has two different effects. From a
merely textual level (attending to the plot of the novel), the diary serves for the police to
consider Nick as a potential murderer and for Nick to acknowledge that his wife is
mentally unstable. From a broader and deeper perspective, the diary plays with the
reader’s emotions, as we will see next.
The other aim of the unreliable narrators of both novels is to create a world of
blurred boundaries between reality and fiction. In Gone Girl, Amy states: “I wanted the
house to tell a story of conflict between true and false” (248). In a way, that is precisely
what she achieves with the creation of her diary. What should I, as reader, believe? Who
can I trust? The whole novel, or at least the first half of it, is about the dichotomy
true/false. On the one hand, we have Nick telling us about his innocence – but can we
trust him? He has already lied to us (he had a lover and he did not tell us), therefore why
should we keep on believing everything he says? On the other hand, we are told about
this smart, funny and cool woman who is being mistreated by her husband. The reader
clearly positions him/herself by Amy’s side. However, when Amy reveals herself to the
reader, we are forced to reinterpret everything we have read thus far. Once again, can
we keep on relying on Amy? She could lie again. Can we trust Nick now?
Furthermore, I believe that the boundaries between reality and fiction are also
hazy in relation to the Amazing Amy series of books. In this case, reality and fiction
15
practically merge. The Elliots rewrite their daughter’s life in a perfect and desirable
way, but it still highly resembles reality.7
Atonement is also very much concerned with the distinction between reality and
fiction. In this case, the obsessive reader is also left unsatisfied because of the lack of
answers at the end of the novel given that, as we have already mentioned, Briony does
not state clearly what has been the fate of the two main protagonists of her novel. As a
matter of fact, Briony Tallis is, once again, the most interesting character from the point
of view of uncertainty, of the mixture of reality and fiction, of misinterpretation.
According to Finney, “[Briony’s] powerful imagination works to confuse the real with
the fictive. Her observation of life around her is conditioned by the fictive world that
holds her in its grip” (78). Briony confuses reality with the fictional works she has read
and, consequently, she bounds the reader to confuse her fiction with reality. 8
2.3. Consequences: the narrator and the reader:
The role of the reader is essential in the interpretation of both novels, especially
for Atonement. This novel requires a second reading to uncover the hidden clues that
may lead the reader towards the truth and that the narrator leaves as winks to the
audience throughout the narrative. In fact, the novel is bursting with ironic anticipations
which may escape the reader’s attention in a first reading, but they will be discovered
with a smile in following approaches, such as “as [Cecilia] passed she felt [Marshall]
touch her lightly on her forearm. Or it may have been a leaf” (McEwan 54). This
example draws the attention of the reader towards the uncertainty revolving the
character of Paul Marshall and the hazy shadows that surround his figure. Cecilia is not
sure about the touch, just as Briony will not be sure about what she witnessed. Besides,
prolepses such as “[t]his decision, as [Robbie] was to acknowledge many times,
transformed his life” (144) emphasize once again not only the omniscient nature of the
narrator but also the final twist of the novel, in a way. They also stress the fact that the
For a deeper analysis of the role played by the Amazing Amy book series, see section 4. WHY?: Identity
and Fiction.
8
The uncertainty about the truth is also perceivable in Lola’s rape, to the extent that the novel even
becomes a detective story. Even though Briony believes herself to be sure, she is never completely certain
of the truth of her accusation. She claims that it was “less like seeing, more like knowing” (170), therefore
she only saw Robbie in her mind, where all the tiles of the puzzle fitted perfectly now.
7
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apparently perfect sunny day will not remain so much longer, for things are bound to
change soon.
Some critics argue in this respect that Atonement is a trauma narrative both for
the characters themselves and also for the reader (Miller 99). The reader, to a certain
extent, commits the same misunderstandings as Briony herself. Obviously, the reader
possesses more information than Briony because he/she knows the picture from every
angle and therefore we do not commit Briony’s actual mistakes, but we are also led to
believe a different reality. In this sense, the unreliability of the narrator is also a device
to prove to the reader the easiness with which we can misconstrue events and situations,
and therefore Briony longs to be forgiven and understood at least by the reader.9
In Gone Girl, the reader experiments a similar traumatic experience, for he/she
is forced to change his/her conception of the characters half way through the novel. As
Galioto puts it, “Flynn writes to readers who must shift from the assumed truth of the
first version to the actual truth of the second version” (10). Amy’s diary leads the reader
to believe a certain reality –that she is a victim of her husband’s aggressive behavior–
but Part Two reveals to the reader the fictional component of the previous narrative, just
as we have seen in McEwan’s novel, and therefore the novel plays with the reader’s
emotions. Besides, not only Amy’s diary but also some statements by Nick do point
towards the conclusion that Nick may be the murderer of his wife: “I feel my father’s
rage rise up in me in the ugliest way. Amy could tell you all about that.” (68)
Unlike in Atonement, in Flynn’s novel we encounter constant addresses to the
reader, which accentuate once more the fictional nature of the narrative. Folsberg and
Nielsen understand these addresses as expressing “an awareness on the narrator’s behalf
that the narratee has access to information that no other character in the story world
would” (58). In this sense, both narrators believe that their statement is the only one that
the reader is getting; neither Nick nor Amy knows that the reader has the picture from
both angles. According to Booth’s terminology, Amy and Nick would be “selfconscious narrators” (Booth 155), given that they are aware of their position and role as
storytellers. Therefore, with statements like “I hope you liked Diary Amy” (Flynn 266)
or “You know how I found out?” (262), the female protagonist wants the reader to
Briony wants us to misread the events just as she did, thereby leading us to believe that Cecilia and
Robbie survived World War II. In a way, it is as if she did not want to be the only one who misinterpreted
reality.
9
17
understand her actions and to forgive her (even though she does not consider she has
done anything wrong); she needs someone to whom to explain why and, most
importantly, how. As we have previously seen, Amy is moved by her need to control
and her obsessive behavior, and therefore she just needs to tell the world how amazing
she is. Besides, in this case the reader cannot foresee the trick: Amy’s diary is flawless
and it is almost impossible for us to anticipate the truth.
18
3. HOW?: Metafiction
3.1. Gone Girl:
In Flynn’s novel, both Nick and Amy Dunne are writers, but the latter has
proved to be the best one of the two. Nick used to write movie reviews for a magazine
and Amy was the author of personality quizzes for women magazines. Thus, we would
expect her work to be somehow lower in rank. Amy, however, is the one who succeeds
at deceiving the reader with her narrative, and he/she is not able to anticipate the fraud.
Nick has also proved to be a writer, for he attempts to write his story –the true
story. Amy, however, applies some censorship to his work, given that she makes him
delete it in order to maintain her legal security:
I hear him clicking away late at night on the computer. Writing. Writing his side, I
know it. I know it, I can tell by the feverish outpouring of words, the keys clicking and
clacking like a million insects. […] I know that I was right to protect myself. To take
my precaution.
Because he isn’t writing a love story. (457)
The reader does not have access to Nick’s novel, but I suppose it would encompass
almost everything in Part Two of Gone Girl, albeit in a (supposedly) truthful and
organized manner.
Furthermore, not only are the protagonists writers but also Amy’s parents. As a
matter of fact, Rand and Marybeth Elliot are the authors of a very successful book series
for children called Amazing Amy and based on their daughter’s life.10
Metafiction is, then, explicit in the novel through the embedded texts that we
find along the work. The most obvious example is Amy’s diary. As we have previously
mentioned, Nick’s narration of the police investigation gets interrupted by Amy’s diary
entries recounting her actions and feelings up to the moment of her disappearance. Her
diary, however, will not be of much help in order to understand Amy and to decipher
who she really is, given that the character she creates for her diary looks nothing like
her real self: “I am the opposite of Amy” (281).
10
For more information about the Amazing Amy books and its consequences, see section 4. WHY?:
Identity and Fiction.
19
Other examples of embedded texts and unreliable narratives in Gone Girl are
Amy’s treasure hunt clues and her personality quizzes. Amy disappears in their fifth
wedding anniversary, and the tradition was for Amy to put up a treasure hunt which
would lead Nick to his present. On this special date, Nick continues once more with
their tradition and follows Amy’s clues, extremely carefully created by his wife.
Moreover, Amy’s personality quizzes are also to be found in the text, also with the
purpose of showing her thoughts and personality – a façade, of course. Ironically (or
masterfully?), she uses personality quizzes created and answered by her to provide the
reader with a false portrayal of her personality.
Language is also very important in this regard. Both Nick and Amy are
constantly making use of language –to honor their profession– in order to trick the
reader into believing something different. Amy’s diary is, again, the best example.
Amy’s inaccuracy in the use of the first person pronoun leads the reader towards the
conclusion that she is talking about herself, whilst in fact she is talking as exactly the
opposite of Real Amy. Amy’s diaries are funny, witty and smart, precisely because she
wants the reader to like her; she wants to win the sympathy of the reader –the police’s
first, but also ours.
Moreover, we should also take into account Nick’s language in his narrative.
Some critics believe that “Nick’s use of italics illustrates that he too acknowledges the
inadequacy of language through its ability to convey multiple levels of (un)intended
meaning” (Galioto 11). In other words, there is a clear division between what Nick
thinks and what he says, and this idea links with what we have previously discussed
regarding the unreliability of Nick as a narrator. He lies to the TV cameras in order to
attract Amy back, as if he still loved her, when all he wants to do is to make her pay for
what she has done: “I wanted to say the words Your daughter is the monster here, but I
couldn’t” (Flynn 307).
3.2. Atonement:
I completely agree with Finney’s view that Atonement is “a work of fiction that
is from beginning to end concerned with the making of fiction” (69) and, more
importantly perhaps, with the nature of reading and misreading. The novel deals more
20
specifically with self-reflexivity, given that it has to do not only with the making of
fiction in general but also with the making of the novel itself.
As we have seen with Amy, Briony is also a storyteller. This fact is clearly
stated since the beginning of the novel – actually the first feature that we get from
Briony’s character is that she is a writer; this is what primarily defines her: “Briony
Tallis the writer” (4). The novel begins and ends with Briony’s play The Trials of
Arabella, and this was neither her first nor her last incursion in literature. McEwan is
then defining Briony as a writer throughout the whole novel, therefore the ending of the
work is completely plausible: “This was the only place she could be free. […] [S]he was
really an important writer in disguise. And at a time when she was cut off from
everything she knew –family, home, friends– writing was the thread of continuity. It
was what she had always done” (280).
As a nurse, she starts writing about the life around her and, as the reader shall
discover at the end of the novel, she was also writing about her sister’s love story. When
everything seems lost for her, when there is no hope anymore and life appears to be
upside-down, writing is everything she has left.
Besides, this metafictional aspect does not end here, for the novel is full of
reflections on the nature of writing, on literature, the role of fiction and that of the
author, which emphasize once more the identity of Briony as a writer. Throughout the
novel, we encounter Briony’s attitude towards modern literature: “The age of clear
answers was over. So was the age of characters and plots. […] It was thought,
perception, sensations that interested her” (281). In a way, this is what we find in Part
One: an emphasis on perception and thoughts; facts and truth have been cast aside in
favour of interpretation.
In addition, her identity as a writer is constantly made clear by her fixation to the
world through a particular lens, from a literary perspective. We can appreciate this fact
in her reaction towards the word ‘cunt’ in Robbie’s letter:
The word: she tried to prevent it sounding in her thoughts, and yet it danced through
them obscenely, a typographical demon, juggling vague, insinuating anagrams –an
uncle and a nut, the Latin for next, an Old English king attempting to turn back the tide.
[…] The word was at one with its meaning, and it was almost onomatopoeic. (114)
21
We see here how McEwan beautifully describes the most tactile aspect of the word.
Briony understands the noun in linguistic terms, almost giving more importance and
emphasis to the actual writing and sound of the word than to its meaning. This is only
one of many examples, since Briony is constantly looking for a specific word to
describe her feelings or thoughts in a particular moment. As she herself puts it, “there
was nothing she could not describe” (165).
Another essential aspect of the novel is its intertextuality, meaning the constant
references to other literary texts. To begin with, the novel itself opens with a quotation
from Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (1817), and this choice is not without a purpose.
I agree with critics such as Finney, who claims that the epigraph “serves as both a
warning and a guide to how the reader should view this narrative” (70), and also as
almost a summary of the main plot. As a matter of fact, Catherine Morland –the
protagonist in Austen’s novel– is characterized by her inability to distinguish reality
from fiction (a sort of Don Quixote). Catherine, who has read too many Gothic novels,
experiments misunderstandings that mirror those of Briony’s. Here is where we find the
link between both characters and novels: Briony decides “to use fiction to attempt to
make amends for the damage fiction has induced her to cause in the first place” (Finney
70). Thus, Briony is influenced by the many books she has read and is no longer able to
separate reality from fiction. She tends to exaggerate and dramatize the events that take
place around her. Her misunderstanding, then, is caused by fiction itself –and only in
fiction can her mistake be erased.
The references to Jane Austen do not end here, though. In Mansfield Park (1814)
we also encounter a play which is not performed in the end; and Tilney’s Hotel, the
name the Tallis’s house receives as a hotel, also makes allusion to Northanger Abbey,
given that in Austen’s novel the male protagonist is called Henry Tilney. In addition,
Austen’s use of irony is also very present throughout the text, as we can appreciate in
the way Marshall is presented: “This wealthy young entrepreneur might not be such a
bad sort, if he was prepared to pass the time of day entertaining children” (69).
Marshall’s problem, in fact, is precisely his longing to entertain children. Moreover, we
also find Austen’s recurrent motif of the dishonored daughter who runs away from
home in order to get married (Pride and Prejudice, 1813). It is not far-fetched,
therefore, that McEwan himself made reference to Atonement as his “Jane Austen
novel” (Hidalgo 83).
22
Apart from Austen, Atonement (and Briony herself) is clearly influenced by
other authors, among whom we could name the modernism of Virginia Woolf (as we
can appreciate in the multiple perspectives of Part One) or Richardson’s Clarissa, a
classical example of the epistolary novel.11 Furthermore, literature is also important as a
form of communication among characters. When Robbie is imprisoned and Cecilia’s
letters are intercepted, they use a literary code in which they are classic lovers of
universal literature. This is what Romero means by “la interrelación que existe entre
algunos personajes de la novela y otros personajes literarios” (3).
Nonetheless, the importance of intertextuality in the novel is that it emphasizes
the fact that what we are reading is indeed a piece of fiction. Finney claims that “[t]he
numerous allusions to other texts warn the reader not to treat Atonement as a classical
realist text” (73). In other words, I believe that the constant references to other literary
traditions should call the reader’s attention to the fictionality of the text itself.
Linked with the aspect of intertextuality and metafiction, Atonement possesses a
structure of Chinese boxes, given that we find embedded texts within the novel itself.
The most obvious example is Atonement, the novel written by Briony (leaving aside the
epilogue, that is). However, within her novel other texts are found as well: letters and
extracts from Briony’s play The Trials of Arabella.
Letters are essential in Atonement. They are not only a mere narrative technique
for characters to communicate, but they are also very important for the development of
the plot. Besides and as aforementioned, the letters introduced in the novel help to
create an atmosphere of certainty; they present proof of the reality of the text. Perhaps
the most important letter is Robbie’s to Cecilia (the one Briony reads), but we could
also talk about the letters sent between Robbie and Cecilia when he was away, Briony’s
letters to her sister, the twins’ letter, Mr. Tallis’s letter to Briony, Conolly’s letter, etc.
In fact, some of the key events of the novel are introduced through letters, like Lola’s
marriage to Marshall, for instance.
Robbie’s explicitly anatomic letter to Cecilia is the last straw for Briony to
declare him a sexual maniac: “With the letter, something elemental, brutal, perhaps
even criminal had been introduced, some principal of darkness” (113). As Pedot argues,
“the letter plays a decisive role: because of [Briony’s] misreading first, but also because
she will choose to use it as an exhibit to indict Robbie” (152). In other words, the letter
11
In fact, letters would play an essential role in this novel, as we will analyze later in this section.
23
is crucial not only because Briony realizes (or thinks she does) the inner nature of
Robbie’s character, but also because the letter is used as a proof to condemn Robbie for
Lola’s rape. Besides, the letter loses its real meaning given that everybody misreads it.
The letter moves from one character to another and none of the readers are able to grasp
its content; Briony misunderstands it because of the naïveté characteristic of her age,
but the older characters have no excuse. Nonetheless, this letter is also essential for
Cecilia to realize that she is actually in love with Robbie. Even though the reader (and
Robbie himself) believes that she is going to reject him and somehow be angry at him
for the explicit content of the letter, it serves as recognition and acknowledgement of the
feelings of both of them: “his stupid letter repelled her but it unlocked her” (130).
Cyril Connolly’s letter to Briony (311-5) is another embedded text and
introduces a deeper layer of narration which points to the postmodern elements of the
narrative. Briony sends her short story “Two Figures by a Fountain” to Horizon, and its
editor replies with a long analysis of the story. In a way, McEwan is making a critical
review of his own writing but, from a deeper level, the sharp-eyed reader is aware of the
revisions and corrections that Briony went through until the final version of her novel.
In fact, analyzing closely the first part of McEwan’s Atonement in relation to Conolly’s
letter, we can appreciate that Briony has taken his considerations into account and has
put into practice his suggestions. Thus, Conolly’s letter shows not only the struggles and
revisions Briony went through for the creation of her novel but also Conolly’s own
opinion about the subject of her misunderstanding:
If this girl has so fully misunderstood or been so wholly baffled by the strange little
scene that has unfolded before her, how might it affect the lives of the two adults?
Might she come between them in some disastrous fashion? Or bring them closer, either
by design or accident? Might she innocently expose them somehow, to the young
woman’s parents perhaps? (313)
“Two Figures by a Fountain”, then, had succeeded: Conolly understood the situation
perfectly. In a way, all the options he provides are correct. Besides, Conolly somehow
encourages Briony to write her novel, because he claims that her short story is
unfinished, that she does not provide a full account of what happened and how it all
turned out: “Everything she did not wish to confront was also missing from her novella”
(320).
24
Briony’s play The Trials of Arabella is another instance of an embedded text.
According to Finney, The Trials of Arabella “frames the narrative as well as crudely
anticipating the action” (75). The play frames the narrative because the novel opens and
closes with it, and it also foresees the development of the novel because, in a way, it
summarizes the plot of Atonement: it is the love story between Arabella and “an
impoverished doctor” (3) after they ran together.12 It is worth noting as well that
Briony’s interest in happy endings is already present in her childhood, for the play also
ends happily ever after: “Here’s the beginning of love at the end of our travail. / So
farewell, kind friends, as into the sunset we sail!” (368). She will also include a happy
ending in her novel, and also in this case she has had to make it up.
Regarding metafiction, language is also very important. Even though Finney
states that “Atonement employs the narrative voice of a 77-year-old English woman”
(68), we should bear in mind that the novel appears as a result of revision after revision.
Briony keeps writing and revising her drafts throughout her whole life, so I believe it is
not only the narrative voice of an old woman but also that of a 20-year-old, 30-year-old
woman and so on. Besides, even though Briony writes her novel as an adult, the point of
view she offers is that of an innocent child. Ian McEwan himself stated on an interview:
I wanted to be able to portray a child’s mind while drawing on all the resources of a
complex adult language […]. I didn’t want the limitations of a childlike vocabulary.
[…] My way round the problem was to make Briony my “author” and let her describe
her childhood self from the inside, but in the language of the mature novelist.13
Perhaps they (McEwan but also Briony) know that, in order to be understood by the
reader, they cannot take the perspective of a mature grown-up. Briony cannot let her
experience influence the vision of the mistakes committed by her younger and innocent
self.
Furthermore, language also has to do with the structure of the novel. As we have
seen, the book is divided in three parts and a final coda. However, the attentive reader is
12
For a thorough interpretation of the characters of The Trials of Arabella see section 4. WHY?: Identity
and Fiction.
13
Ian McEwan, “The Art of Fiction CLXXIII,” interview with Adam Begley, Paris Review 162 (2002)
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/393/the-art-of-fiction-no-173-ian-mcewan (25/06/2016)
25
able to identify that Part One is divided in chapters, whereas parts Two and Three are no
longer classified, only with a blank separation between paragraphs. This is not the only
distinction among parts, for the language of Part Two and Three is clearly darker and
sharper than that of Part One, given that the story now follows Robbie into the crude
reality of World War II. Hidalgo points out regarding the language of Part Two that
“[l]ittle narrative space is left for ironical allusion and reimagining the literary past; and
the emphasis is on objects, bodies, and the physical sensations of hunger, thirst, and
fear” (87). We have left behind the sunny day of Part One to be immersed in the dark
reality of war, legs in trees (192) and holey skulls (308).
26
4. WHY?: Identity and Fiction
The characters of both novels use fiction as a way to recreate their identities, to
reinvent themselves. Therefore, fiction allows Briony to atone for her sins (or at least to
try to do so) while creating parallel lives and identities for herself, her sister Cecilia and
Robbie. Fiction also allows Amy to craft lots of different individualities to the extent of
preventing the reader from recognizing which is the original one.
In Flynn’s Gone Girl, it is impossible to define Amy Dunne, to attribute certain
truthful features to her persona, given that she performs endless roles throughout the
novel (and throughout her life). Her husband Nick tries to define her as
fucking brilliant. Her brain is so busy, it never works on just one level. She’s like this
endless archaeological dig: you think you’ve reached the final layer, and then you bring
down your pick one more time, and you break through to a whole new mine shaft
beneath. With a maze of tunnels and bottomless pits. (285)
In my opinion, Nick is pretty accurate. Amy has so many different layers of
interpretation and of depth that she is almost impossible to comprehend or to empathize
with. Amy’s smartness and cunning lie precisely in her capacity to wear different masks
–practically always successfully– and she is aware of that fact. As she herself puts it:
“Nick loved a girl who doesn’t exist. I was pretending, the way I often did, pretending
to have a personality. […] It’s what I’ve always done: the way some women change
fashion regularly, I change personalities.” (250) Therefore, depending on what suits her
best, she dresses up as different people; she puts on diverse dispositions depending on
who she is interacting with.
Since her early childhood, she has been Amazing Amy. As aforementioned, her
life has inspired her parents to create a series of books about her, the Amazing Amy
books. “When I finally quit violin at age twelve, Amy was revealed as a prodigy in the
next book. […] When I blew off the junior tennis championship at age sixteen to do a
beach weekend with friends, Amy recommitted to the game.” (30) This creation of a
better figure would lead Amy to her fate. In other words, I believe that the fact that her
childhood (and adolescence and adulthood actually) is being reinvented by her parents
as to make it perfect leads Amy to the creation of different identities for herself, and she
ends up being unable to distinguish who she really is. As we will see in Atonement as
well, fiction seems to be the root of all evil, for it leads the protagonists to their tragedy
27
and also helps them to succeed in their aim. Hence, Amy’s alter ego is perfect in all the
ways Amy is not. These books present an improved and more perfect version of Amy,
and she somehow considers that it is her responsibility to live up to that model until she
eventually loses herself in the meantime: “Until Nick, I’d never really felt like a person,
because I was always a product” (252).
Nonetheless, she does not show her real self to her husband either, for with Nick
she does not become Real Amy but Cool Girl. In her own words, Cool Girl is “the girl
who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain” (251). When she
meets Nick, she starts to perform as the Cool Girl because she likes him and knows that
that particular self is what men desire the most. She acts in the same manner throughout
her whole marriage and, when she gets tired of pretending, she tries to introduce her
actual self in the life of her husband. Surprisingly for her, things do not turn up as she
expected: “Can you imagine, finally showing your true self to your spouse, your soul
mate, and having him not like you? So, that’s how the hating first began” (254). We
should not blame Nick, though: he fell in love with an ideal, a woman who is not real
and is not willing to keep on pretending any longer.
This personality leads us to Diary Amy. Once she has set up her mind about
pretending her murder and blaming Nick for it, she creates another identity, as fake as
the previous ones. Diary Amy, also known as Poor Amy or even Dead Girl, features a
pitiable woman who is constantly being abused by her husband. The reader, believing
Diary Amy to be Amy’s real self, instantly identifies with her and loathes Nick, just as
Amy had planned. Amy describes Diary Amy as a “likable […], naïve persona, a
woman who loved her husband and could see some of his flaws […] but was sincerely
devoted to him” (266). In fact, by writing her diary Amy is also creating a different
identity for Nick; let us call it Diary Nick. He is portrayed as a careless, drunk, hateful
and violent (even deadly) husband; practically gathering all the characteristics of a
potential murderer.
In Part Two we get to meet Real Amy, a controlling, possessive, vengeful,
tenacious and cunning yet also mentally unstable woman. However, is this Real Amy?
Is there a Real Amy, actually? I personally believe that she does not know who she
really is anymore, she does not have a fixed set of features but she is formed by
acquiring characteristics from here and there. In this sense, the title of the novel could
make reference not only to the fact that Amy is actually missing but it could also be
28
alluding to this idea of her lack of an identity. Amy is a Gone Girl, an absent and
abstract personality.
Amy’s set of identities does not end here, for we also encounter Ozark Amy or
Avenging Amy. The former makes reference to Amy’s life when she was hiding in the
cabin. She is portrayed as an abused woman and a run-away, more or less a mixture
between Diary and Real Amy. Moreover, in the cabins she calls herself Lydia, which is
also interesting in terms of identity because that is how her mother would have liked to
call her if she had not had so many problems during her pregnancy. Therefore, when she
gets the chance to choose, Amy selects who she was supposed to have been –she did not
want to be Amazing Amy but Lydia, the girl her parents had wanted. Perhaps then they
would not have had to create a fictional perfect kid.
This leads to Amy’s parents, the ones to blame in many respects. Amy herself
blames her parents for her traumatic childhood but she somehow ends up being just like
them! She also becomes a writer and creates (or writes) different identities, thus she is
not very much away from what her parents did with her. In a way, she follows their
example to the extreme. Furthermore, the parental issue will also be interesting
regarding Nick, given that his whole purpose in life is not to become his misogynist
father. He, however, ends up being unfaithful to his wife, considerably traumatized and
thinking about abandoning his wife and unborn child, repeating what Bill Dunne had
done.
Avenging Amy, however, shares more features with Real Amy than with any
other of her identities. She is scheming and manipulative, and makes everyone believe
what she desires: “Amy likes to play God when she’s not happy” (310). Nick is not her
first victim, for we also find the examples of Tommy ‘the rapist’ and Hilary ‘the
stalker’. Amy manages to make everyone believe that she is the one to pity, the victim,
whilst destroying the life of those around her –remember Desi?
As I have been anticipating, Nick also performs different roles throughout the
novel. Diary Nick is the character that Amy creates for her diary, but he also performs
as Real Nick and Interview Nick. Real Nick’s personality is not as complex as Amy’s;
he is more simple and predictable. However, in Interview Nick we see the other side of
him, the Nick who is willing to lie in front of the camera in order to succeed in his
purpose –bringing Amy back home.
29
As Amy, Briony also uses fiction to create different identities for herself in
Atonement. Properly speaking, it should be said that it is not only for herself, but also
for Cecilia and Robbie. Briony makes up a reunion between the three of them that could
not have taken place and therefore she provides her sister and Robbie with a set of
characteristics (like their thoughts, feelings or actions) to which she could not have had
access.
Lola describes Briony as “earnest, ridiculous, […] who couldn’t tell real life
from the stories in her head” (324). In a way, that is Briony speaking, acknowledging
her mistake. In fact, Briony takes advantage of fiction in order to explain herself, to
make the world understand the error she committed. She makes herself a character of
her novel and tries to make the reader empathize with her as much as possible, or at
least to make him or her comprehend her acts: “she had never thought of herself as a
liar. […] She hadn’t intended to mislead, she hadn’t acted out of malice” (336). As we
can see in this quotation from the novel, she is clearly trying to explain what she had not
the chance to explain while Cecilia and Robbie were alive.
Besides, Briony also creates a different personality for Robbie in her fiction. It
seems as if she wanted to emphasize Robbie’s goodness, generosity and selflessness,
given that she highlights those features in Part Two. Robbie wants to save as many
individuals as possible during the war, even though he will not be able to do so. He tries
to save a woman and child and an enemy soldier from being slaughtered, for instance,
and is also the perfect leader for his squad.
In terms of identity, Briony’s play The Trials of Arabella is very interesting as
well, for the characters of the play share many features with the characters of
Atonement. The comparisons between Arabella and Cecilia and the prince and Robbie
abound in the text: “my spontaneous, fortuitous sister and her medical prince survive to
love” (371, my emphasis), or “This is the tale of spontaneous Arabella […]. For that
fortuitous girl the sweet day dawned / To wed her gorgeous prince” (367, my
emphasis). It is not a coincidence, then, that Briony uses the same adjectives to describe
both Cecilia and Arabella. Furthermore, I believe that the play is also important in
relation to the character of Briony. She, as the author and director of the play, takes for
granted that she is going to play the part of Arabella and does not expect her cousin
Lola to adopt the role. Briony is clearly manifesting not only her longing to be the
center of attention –she had to hand over the stage to her cousin but she managed to get
the spotlight either way– but also her desire to become her sister. She is jealous of
30
Cecilia because Robbie pays more attention to her sister than to herself, and Briony
seems to have a girly crush on him. The fact that Lola steals her part, then, is another
straw – even in her play she is second best. In addition, Robbie is clearly Briony’s
Prince Charming: “Briony had written a tale in which a humble woodcutter saved a
princess from drowning and ended by marrying her” (38). In fact, she recreates the
scene years later in order to prove that Robbie would actually save her from drowning
(230-1).
Taking everything into account, the novel could be understood as a
künstlerroman, given that it deals with the development of an artist as a young woman.
Briony matures throughout the novel to the extent of understanding what she could not
comprehend when she was a child. She realizes her mistake and tries to make amends
with those she hurt. When asked what made her so certain now about Lola’s rapist, she
simply declares “growing up” (342). The novel, therefore, is a development from
innocence and naïveté to wisdom and maturity.
That maturity is also reflected in the names. Briony gets rid of her first name
when she moves to London to be a nurse and therefore she becomes ‘Nurse Tallis’. In
fact, the narrator claims that “she had no identity beyond her badge” (276). In a way,
perhaps that is what she wanted: to start from scratch in a new place where no one knew
her. We find some parallelisms here with Robbie, given that he also becomes Turner in
Part Two. Both Briony and Robbie have been deprived of their identities: “The uniform,
like all uniforms, eroded identity” (276). Robbie and Briony become more or less the
same, a solitary figure among thousands, surrounded by the horrors of the war.
31
32
5. Conclusion
Someone may be wondering: why should I care? Why is this relevant? Briony
would answer: the age of plots is over. I completely agree with her statement. I believe
we are living now in a very interesting age for contemporary literature, in which other
literary techniques are being introduced. Two of the most recurrent ones are the figure
of the unreliable narrator and metafiction.
I have chosen these two novels because I believe they share their most
fascinating features. Both of them are narratives dealing with consciously unreliable
narrators, who create their own story-within-the-story in order to fulfil their objectives.
On the one hand, we encounter a woman who forges entries of a diary in order to frame
her husband with murder. On the other hand, an old woman is trying to ask for
forgiveness and to atone for past mistakes. Here it lies the main difference between our
two authors: Amy is definitely acting out of malice, for her ultimate purpose is the
imprisonment of her husband Nick and even his death (Missouri has death penalty),
whereas Briony’s is more honorable, that of providing her sister with the happy ending
she could not have.
Hence, the unreliable narrator has an immense impact on the reader, given that
its main aim is to trick the reader into believing an alternate reality. Although the
narrators of both novels use the reader for their own means, they differ in this aspect as
well, for Amy’s narrative is addressed both to the police and to an implied reader,
whereas Briony’s novel is not meant to anyone but an implied audience. The role played
by the reader, therefore, is essential for the stories, given that they would remain
pointless without him/her.
Thus, both protagonists are writers; therefore the role of fiction in their lives has
a great influence. In fact, fiction seems to be the evil seed that destroyed them
somehow. Amy has to live up to a model, Amazing Amy, and Briony confuses fiction
and reality because of all the literature she has consumed. As a consequence, both
novels are inevitably dealing with aspects of metafiction and self-reflexivity, for we
encounter embedded texts, the importance of language and even instances of
intertextuality. These features are going to emphasize the fictionality of the two texts,
warning the reader about the ever-present manifestation and power of literature.
As a final but most interesting point, it is worth highlighting the role of these
unreliable narrators as creators of identities and imaginary realities –just as all writers
33
are. These two figures, nonetheless, are not satisfied with the creation of alter egos for
themselves, given that they also turn their relatives into characters of their stories. In
other words, the narrators of both novels use fiction in order to create alternative
realities and different identities. The protagonists turn into authors, and they count on
the figure of the unreliable narrator to achieve their purpose. Essentially, their aim is to
create alter egos in order to modify their lives and thus to succeed in their mission,
whether this is blaming a husband for murder or atoning for past mistakes.
As this dissertation has aimed to prove, I believe we should consider this topic
relevant because there must be something worrying contemporary writers if we are able
to find novels like these.14 The fact that these two novels address issues like the power
of fiction to manipulate, to create, to mend or to turn someone unstable shows that the
role of fiction and the figure of the narrator in contemporary literature are being
expanded and explored.
Imagine a world in which you can become whatever you want to be. You can
cast aside for good your inner flaws and strengthen your qualities and virtues.
Impossible is a non-existent word –this is a land where everything imaginable can
happen. Unquestionably, this land has been around since the beginning of humankind.
Kings and gods populated it, making way for the adventurers, the middle-class women
or the poor English children that were to come.
This is the land of fiction. Those strong enough as to walk this realm are aware
of their power, of their capacity to change their reality by treading undiscovered paths.
They will not doubt to lie or deceive if that allows them to achieve their purpose –that of
being someone else, that of living different lives.
14
Another very recommendable example of literary fiction dealing with the same ideas I have discussed
in this dissertation is Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin (2000).
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------- (1814). Mansfield Park. 2012. London: Penguin Classics.
------- (1817). Northanger Abbey. 2014. London: Vintage Classics.
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