Analyzing the Unreliable Narrator: Repetition and Subjectivity in Raymond Carver's "What Do You Do in San Francisco?"

Abstract

The focus of this paper is on a further investigation into the growing area of research in the idea of unreliability in literary studies. The paper seeks to examine the issue of unreliability with reference to Raymond Carver's seminal short story "What Do You Do in San Francisco?" The first part of the paper provides an overview of the contrasted key theoretical investigations into the concept of unreliability, and in the second part, I have made an analysis of Carver's story by applying the ideas of unreliability, mainly A. Nünning's cognitive model. Even with the publication of Booth's (1961, [1983]), narrative element assumes the central significance in narratology. In recent times, many theorists have taken issue with Booth and have even denounced some of the fundamental ideas propounded by Booth. Taking into cognizance both sides of the arguments, my paper, besides discussing the notion of unreliability, attempts a detailed analysis of Carver's narrative. In essence, the paper highlights how the foregrounded language of the surface of the story contributes to the reader's suspicion of the reliability of the narrator, thus forcing him/her to scrutinize its depth in an attempt to fathom an ample meaning