DECONSTRUCTING OF UNRELIABLE NARRATION: AUTHORIAL CUES AND READER ENGAGEMENT (A STUDY OF ZOE HELLER’S “NOTES ON A SCANDAL”)

Abstract

The study of unreliable narration, the identification of its features, and the development of a corresponding typology constitute significant contemporary concerns within literary studies. Modern literature provides a rich and inexhaustible resource for addressing these issues. One such example is Notes on a Scandal (2003) by contemporary American writer Zoë Heller. The novel’s plot centers on the relationship between a middleaged teacher at a London school and a fifteen-year-old student. The story is narrated by a character who is involuntarily involved in the events, ostensibly aiming to offer an objective account of the dramatic developments and to explain the nature and causes of the protagonist’s “fall”. The purpose of the study is to uncover the author’s strategies for deconstructing unreliable narration in Zoë Heller’s novel and to illustrate how readers can revise the narrator’s account of events through close reading of the text. Methodology. The analysis of Notes on a Scandal, with regard to its genre-specific characteristics and narrative structure (a diary novel incorporating elements of reminiscence and subjective reflection), is undertaken through the application of narratological analysis, reception theory, reader-response theory, and close reading techniques. Results. The analysis reveals several techniques employed in exposing the unreliable narrator: factual and logical inconsistencies within the narrative structure, the inclusion of off-plot episodes, unintentional disclosures, the narrator’s biased judgments, and the correction of her narrative by other characters. Conclusions. When approached through the lens of unreliable narration deconstruction, Notes on a Scandal may be interpreted as an exploration of various dimensions and manifestations of human obsession, as well as attempts to conceal and suppress these impulses both within the self and in the perception of external observers. In recounting the story of a middle-aged teacher’s obsession with a fifteen-year-old student, the narrator inadvertently reveals her own obsessive fixation on the protagonist of her story. While the “fall” of the plot’s protagonist is overt, the narrator’s own “fall” – despite her conscious and unconscious efforts to mask her biases, jealousy, resentment, and possessive tendencies – becomes apparent through careful reading and the deconstruction of the elements of unreliable narration.