Is Jake an Unreliable Narrator?
I am leaning more towards, "Yes, Jake is an unreliable narrator".
I say this because the book is written in first person with Jake's perspective. This means that every opinion is a fact. So the narration may sound like a report, but the paragraphs reek with so many biases. One example is his description of Cohn in the opening Chapter. He is constantly referring to Cohn "being treated as a Jew at Princeton". It has an Anti-Semitic feeling all over, an example being when he explains Cohn nose injury saying, "and it certainly improved his nose."
Jake also has the liberty to leave out/ skim through details when narrating. We can see this when he is crying. He says, "Then all of a sudden I started to cry. Then after a while it was better and I lay in bed and listened to the heavy trams go by and way down the street, and then I went to sleep." In the moment that he is crying (and arguably the entire scene) we can tell he is in emotional distress be he chooses to disconnect from the reader on the emotional level and to cut out what he is thinking while crying (which goes back to the "iceberg" idea.)
But I will argue that the unreliable narrator aspect allows us to understand Jake more. For example, because Jake does not give us a lot of his thoughts explicitly, we understand that he is a character that chooses to disconnect with himself emotionally. Because Jake hides his biases in the narration of the story, we see that he is a very subtle and 3D person. So even though I think that Jake is unreliable as a narrator, doesn't mean I do not like it.
Do you agree? What do you thinking?
I say this because the book is written in first person with Jake's perspective. This means that every opinion is a fact. So the narration may sound like a report, but the paragraphs reek with so many biases. One example is his description of Cohn in the opening Chapter. He is constantly referring to Cohn "being treated as a Jew at Princeton". It has an Anti-Semitic feeling all over, an example being when he explains Cohn nose injury saying, "and it certainly improved his nose."
Jake also has the liberty to leave out/ skim through details when narrating. We can see this when he is crying. He says, "Then all of a sudden I started to cry. Then after a while it was better and I lay in bed and listened to the heavy trams go by and way down the street, and then I went to sleep." In the moment that he is crying (and arguably the entire scene) we can tell he is in emotional distress be he chooses to disconnect from the reader on the emotional level and to cut out what he is thinking while crying (which goes back to the "iceberg" idea.)
But I will argue that the unreliable narrator aspect allows us to understand Jake more. For example, because Jake does not give us a lot of his thoughts explicitly, we understand that he is a character that chooses to disconnect with himself emotionally. Because Jake hides his biases in the narration of the story, we see that he is a very subtle and 3D person. So even though I think that Jake is unreliable as a narrator, doesn't mean I do not like it.
Do you agree? What do you thinking?
I also agree that Jake Barnes is an unreliable narrator though I don't know if this makes me like him anymore. I think the point you made about Jake's detachment and the fact that the book is in the first point of view. With this point of view idea and also the "tip of the iceberg" idea, this novel is very interesting in that there is so much to say since so little is said. However, Jake's cool nature and sometimes cruel humor isn't justified nor overlooked by me because we know so little about his thoughts. It just makes me a little more irritated with him because I want to get to know him better by learning his thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI think Jake Barnes is both reliable and unreliable. He is "reliable" in that I don't think he is deliberately trying to deceive the reader. However, he is "unreliable" because any human being naturally has preconceived notions and biases. Without a narrator excluded from the plot, it is impossible to have a truly "reliable" narrator.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I definitely agree with everything your saying. I think that Hemingway purposefully wrote Jake to be an unreliable character so that the reader can almost perceive Jake in a way that Jake would perceive himself. In that, he is not completely explicit in his thoughts (for example he is obviously self-conscious about his masculinity, however he doesn't explicitly state that) as you said, therefore the way that he perceives this fictional world speaks volumes as a more intimate and honest study of character. What we read is exactly as Jake processes the world around him, and he can't hide how he reacts to the things around him, therefore it's honest. Therefore I guess one could say although the narrator is not being subjective, it's being "reliable" in the sense that it will always provide a window to that fictional world from Jake's perspective.
ReplyDeleteGood point, Ayah. However I would argue that he isn't too unreliable in terms of describing the events around him. His tone is pretty informative and he is quite crude and honest (sometimes a little too brutally, like describing Georgette's teeth), and in public settings I felt like he didn't give his opinions too much. However in private and when he thinks of people individually, he is a very biased narrator. But I like it, because we see Jake's true feelings when he is alone and it helps the reader connect with him more.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that in some aspects Jake is an unreliable narrator. Like you said above, he leaves big gaps in the narrative and it's sometimes unclear how he's really feeling. Especially after reading Mrs. Dalloway, in which the narration went deep into the characters heads and the reader knew exactly what all the characters were thinking, it's a lot different to not get the perspective of what all the characters are thinking all the time. However, I think that in some ways Jake is a good narrator because he gives very detailed descriptions of the people and places around him.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Jake is an unreliable narrator, but that this unreliability adds to the narrative. A key point that you made is that the narration sounds like fact, but is actually all opinion. I think it's all too easy to get caught up in the tone and take everything Jake says at face level, which would lead to a biased view of the story. However, if you realize that Jake is unreliable you can look closely at what he says (or doesn't say) and use that as an opportunity to learn more about his character.
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