Behind Silence and Lies: An Analysis of Lucy's Unreliable Narration and Its Effects
Scientific Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, (2025), Vol.7, No.8, pp.492-497
Published: August 11, 2025
DOI: 10.54691/e54ca993
Abstract
As the narrator in a fixed internal focalization narrative form, Lucy creates narrative ambiguity and contradiction by concealing the identities of Dr. John and Mr. Paul and denying her feelings for Graham, she has unreliable characteristics on both the "fact" axis and the "value" axis. This unreliability both keeps readers at a distance through silence and lies while resonating with readers through her mental motivation. Bronte restructures the relationship between the narrator and the readers based on this, thus highlighting the living dilemma of women's self-repression in the Victorian era.
Keywords:
Unreliable narration; Lucy Snowe; Villett, self-repression.
APA Citation:
Qiumei Yang (2025). Behind Silence and Lies: An Analysis of Lucy's Unreliable Narration and Its Effects. Scientific Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 7(8), 492-497. https://doi.org/10.54691/e54ca993
References
- Shang Biwu. Keywords in Western Literary Theory: Unreliable Narration [J]. Foreign Literature, 2011 (6): 103-112+159.
- Kreilkamp Ivan. Voice and the Victoran Storyteller[M]. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
- Rabinowitz Nancy Sorkin.“Faithful Narrator” or “Partial Eulogist”: First-Person Narration in Brontë's “Villette”[J]. Journal of Narrative Theory, 1985, 15(3): 244-255.
- Lubbock Percy. The Craft of Fiction[M]. London: Jonathan Cape, 1921.
- Shen Dan. Research on Narratology and Novel Stylistics [M]. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2019.
- Stanzel F K. A Theory of Narrative[M]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
- Shuttleworth Sally. Charlotte Brontë and Victorian Psychology[M]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
- Jacobus Mary. Women Writing and Writing About Women[M]. New York: Harper, 1979.
- O’Dea Gregory S. Narrator and Reader in Charlotte Bronte’s Villette[J]. South Atlantic Review, 1988, 53(1): 41-57.
- Yang Jingyuan. Research on Bronte Sisters [M]. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 1983.
- Iser Wolfgang. The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett[M]. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1974.
- Vicinus Martha. Independent Women, Work and Community for Single Women, 1850-1920[M]. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.