Gold, Man, Sax and Violins CH 6 V-2

[Robin Landseadel]

On Sep 9, 2010, at 12:50 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> Laura sez:
>     "Benny's the grounded, reality-based recent young grad side of
>     P, while Stencil's the voice of P the emerging author.
>
> Stencil is P discovering his historical vision?
>
> Once again, I will argue, Robin & Dave W., the usual meaning of  
> 'unreliable
> narrator" is not happening here.....as in The Good Soldier or  
> Remains of the Day
> wherein we learn of TRUE FACTS that the narrators blind themselves
> to....................
>
> Here in V., we have that effaced narrator persona merging with the  
> voice of the
> various characters......

I looking at the sense of the parodic, satirical sense of unreliable  
narrator. I'm thinking of such works as "Gulliver's Travels."

A little confirmation that this is also an accepted usage of  
"unreliable narrator."

	Jonathon Swift's Gulliver's Travels is an early representation of
	a novel, resonating both political and social satire. Despite the
	obvious satirical elements in this text, Gulliver's unreliable
	narrative voice is a satire within itself. Mocking the travel
	narratives contemporary of his time, Swift utilizes the narration
	of Gulliver in order to criticize the naïve and gullible English
	men and women who read travel narratives as factual
	documents despite the overt Royalist paraphernalia and overly
	descriptive aspects.


	The text commences with "A Letter from Captain Gulliver to His
	Cousin Sympson," creating the framework of Swift's satire of
	contemporary travel documents. Within the very first sentence of
	this letter Gulliver already states that he urgently published this
	"very loose and uncorrect account of [his] travels" (2331). This
	statement signals to the reader that Swift is purposely
	conveying his narrator as unreliable, and furthermore, he writes
	"I do here renounce...a paragraph about her Majesty the late
	Queen Anne, of most pious and glorious memory" (2331). The
	statements conjointly set up Swift's satire of the travel narrative
	with both elements of "loose and uncorrect" travel accounts, as
	well as a parody of Royalist paraphernalia.


	The unreliability of the narrator runs throughout the text, and is
	presumably Swift's method of satirizing the unreliable
	narrations of English traveler's accounts of their own travels to
	new lands. In Part I, "A Voyage to Lilliput," Swift writes that when
	Gulliver first arrived upon Lilliput he "conjectured [it] was about
	eight o'clock in the evening...was extremely tired...drank
	[brandy]...and slept...above nine hours" (2336). The most
	intriguing aspect of this section is that Swift conveys his narrator
	as overly exhausted, drunk off of brandy, and delirious from his
	swim to shore; therefore, Swift is purposely setting up a narrator
	who is obviously not in a state of mind where his perception is
	unclouded. Swift could possibly be satirizing the delusions of
	the English travelers who were writing back to England at the
	time, mocking that these captains were also drunk and delirious
	from their travels, and they quite possibly could be imagining
	the "wonders" that they described. Anyone who has read
	Samuel Taylor's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is aware of
	the effect that the desolation of the sea can have of one's
	psyche. Swift's inclusion of exceedingly exact measures and
	time frames is also notable in his attempt to satirize the travel
	narratives. For example, the narrator was aware of the exact
	time of day, and exactly how long he slept in the previous
	quotation. Furthermore, Gulliver narrates an entire paragraph
	concerning the description of the ancient temple in which he
	was to stay in Lilliput which exhaustively explains exact
	measurements of the gate being "four foot high" and "almost
	two foot wide," and "a small window not above six inches from
	the ground" (2340). Swift is able to mock the overly descriptive
	narratives of his contemporary British travelers by including
	overly descriptive and unbelievable measurements into the
	narrative of his protagonist Gulliver.

	The Royalist paraphernalia within Swift's text is equally
	significant in his parody of travel narrator's unreliability in which
	English men and women at the time believed as factual. Every
	instance in which Gulliver says something (or provokes from
	another) a negative response about England or England's
	monarchy, Gulliver augments the statement with praise of
	England and/or the monarchy. For example, in Part II Chapter
	VII the narrator uses a pre-verification before he begins to tell a
	story in which his "noble and beloved country was so injuriously
	treated" (2404). Swift then writes "a strange effect of narrow
	principles and short views!" in relation to the King of
	Brodingnag's lack of interest in gunpowder. Gulliver's sarcastic
	tone could not possibly be any more obvious in this line, as
	Swift utilizes his narrator Gulliver as a representation of
	England as a morally corrupt and violent society. In this same
	section, Swift writes that Gulliver will "hide the frailties and
	deformities of [his] political mother, and place her virtues and
	beauties in the most advantageous light" (2404). This statement
	is further demonstrative of Swift's opinion of the travel narratives
	in which the authors continuously praise their mother country,
	not because they were particularly Royalist Englishmen, but
	because their travels were funded by the monarchy, and
	therefore they must bootlick and grovel as much as possible so
	that their funding continues. Essentially, Swift's Gulliver's
	Travels is a text compiled of various layers of satire, and
	Gulliver's narrative voice is satirical within itself. In representing
	the unreliability of contemporary travel narratives, as well as
	their Royalistic purposes, Swift criticizes the English men and
	women who naïvely determined them as factual documents.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/916153/the_satirical_narrator_in_jonathon.html?cat=54