Point of View and Unreliability in Brontë's 〈〈Wuthering Heights〉〉, Conrad's 〈〈Under Western Eyes〉〉 and Mann's 〈〈Doktor Faustus〉〉

Abstract

Point of view is used as the basis for a comparison between the three novels. We first examine the common features of the narrators’position. We then analyze the various narrative techniques which enable the reader to go beyond the narrators’comments. Two levels of composition can be distinguished: one, acknowledged by the narrators, follows the model of non‐fictional narratives (biography, Dr. Faustus; historical documents, Under Western Eyes; family chronicle, Wuthering Heights), the other makes use of characteristic features of a work of fiction: scenic presentation, symbolic imagery, complex time sequence, etc… The second le̊vel of composition goes beyond the narrators’understanding.The narrators’unreliability is then defined in terms of contrastive features which oppose them to the main characters. The narrators’views are undermined because of their inability to cope with a side of human nature which they stubbornly refuse to acknowledge.