Abstract

The purpose of the paper was to investigate the unreliable narration in Pride and Prejudice as the approach to irony.
According to literary research, “Unreliable Narration” was first suggested by Wayne C. Booth in his The Rhetoric of Fiction. When a narrator’s ideas and descriptions were in conflict with that of the implied author who was a perfect existence of a story, the narrator was unreliable. Two approaches were mainly adopted by western scholars in the study of “Unreliable Narration,” namely, “Synthesizing Cognitive” and “Rhetorical Approaches.” This paper focused on the latter as it was more authentic. Findings suggested unreliable narration served as a major cause of irony. Jane Austen is a master of irony and her Pride and Prejudice is a typical example of irony as well as a good text to study unreliable narration as its cause. This paper studied the theory with examples from three aspects including diction, characterization and plot.

Key Words: unreliable narration, irony, diction, characterization, plot

摘要

本文旨在探究《傲慢与偏见》中的不可靠叙述策略如何产生反讽效果。 “不可靠叙述”最初由布思在其《小说修辞学》中提出。该理论核心内容为当叙述者的思想或描述与隐含作者的相悖，该叙述者就是不可靠的。在西方学术界对该理论的研究主要有两个方向：“认知（建构）方法”和“修辞方法”。由于后者更加可信，本文致力于从“修辞方法”这一方面研究《傲慢与偏见》中的“不可靠叙述”。简·奥斯汀是一位反讽大师，其《傲慢与偏见》更是一部反讽的杰作。笔者在本文中阐述了小说中反讽产生的根源—“不可靠叙述”，分别从其对反讽言辞、人物刻画和情节三方面的影响进行了剖析，并加以一定的例证说明。

关键词：不可靠叙述 反讽 言辞 人物刻画 情节

I.    Introduction
A.    Unreliable Narration and Two Approaches of Its Study
Narrator is one of the three entities in story-telling, and the other two are author and audience. A narrator often acts as the storyteller who knows the whole development of a thing, or at least, knows partially the story. Unreliable narrator is a narrator whose concept or value is actually incorrect. An unreliable narrator cannot be trusted in that he talks or comments with lopsided view, as is introduced by Wayne C. Booth in his The Rhetoric of Fiction (211). The narration made by unreliable narrator is unreliable narration, which means that these narrations cannot be trusted.