Why Is Gene's Unreliable Narrator?

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Renowned mother of six, Carol Brady, once explained “Trust is like a vase… once it’s broken, though you can fix it, the vase will never be the same.” When a story is narrated, the reader has a trusting bond with the narrator. When the narrator breaks this trust, the reliability of the entire story is scrutinized. Gene Forrester is a man in his thirties visiting his alma matter and retelling the story of his schooling, focusing on the summer when his friend Finny fell from a tree branch, and the impact this had on him and his classmates. Gene’s individual discrepancies are relatively small, but combined; they destroy the relationship of trust between narrator and reader. Gene’s unreliable narration is contradictory and deceitful by avoiding responsibility and justifying a horrible deed with over-intensified emotion. Gene’s narration is conflicting, especially when describing his relationship with Finny, leading one to believe that Gene is hiding his true feelings away from the reader. At the start of the novel, after Gene jumps…show more content…
People argue that everybody has bad thoughts, and everybody is deceitful, and this is true. Real people are untruthful, therefore a reliable narrator must include these situations. The reason Gene is an unreliable narrator is not because he deceives those around him: he is unreliable because he deceives those reading his story. Even 15 years after the incident, Gene is unable to tell the unabridged story of that fateful summer. By giving a contradictory narration, in which he deceives, blames, avoids, and over-intensifies, Gene erodes the intimate trust that always exists at the beginning of a narrated novel. Gene’s inability to admit his own guilt is moral lesson to all: lies and deception may fool others, but one can never outrun a guilty conscience. Avoidance may give one temporary peace, but only a clean soul can achieve a lasting, separate
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