Browsing by Subject "Young Adult literature"

This thesis argues that the unreliable narrators of E. Lockhart’s novels We Were Liars and Family of Liars are utilized to hide information from readers and create suspense. We Were Liars follows Cadence Sinclair Eastman, who is trying to restore her memories of the accident that happened two years prior. The unreliability of the character-narrator is evident at the start of the tale as Cadence’s fragmented memories prevent her from forming a coherent narrative. The thesis also analyzes the novel’s prequel, Family of Liars, in which Cadence’s aunt, Carrie, narrates the story of her worst mistake to her deceased son. In contrast to Cadence, Carrie’s unreliability is addressed explicitly at the beginning of the story as she explains that she might not be able to tell the story truthfully. The thesis uses elements of the rhetorical approach and cognitive literary studies to analyze the use of unreliable narrators in the primary material. The rhetorical approach is used to examine the story-level of the narratives and the textual clues of unreliability, which the author has encoded into the narrative. For this purpose, the thesis applies James Phelan’s framework of six different types of unreliable narration to analyze this textual evidence. Moreover, it uses Greta Olson’s taxonomy of the fallible narrator and the untrustworthy narrator to express how the narrators differ from each other. The cognitive approach will be used to discuss the effects of unreliable narration on the reading experience. To explore these effects, the thesis builds on the theories of Lisa Zunshine and Vera Tobin to address how Lockhart’s narrators are used to evoke tension that eventually releases in the climax of the stories. The thesis shows that the narrators are utilized differently to maintain the element of tension in the novels. Cadence’s fallibility and partial memories make it difficult for the reader to be certain of her version of the events throughout the story. On the other hand, Carrie’s unreliable nature is clearly stated to the reader at the start of the story, but it is deeply buried by the author to build tension and surprise the readers with the plot twist.