Hannah Crafts' "The Bondwoman’s Narrative" - The (un-) Reliability of the Narrator

Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Regensburg (Amerikanistik), course: Slave Narratives and Neo-Slave Narratives, 19 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The following term paper deals with the question of reliability or unreliability of the narrator in Hannah Crafts' The Bondwoman's Narrative. But before the narrator's reliability is analysed, some definitions and background information on reliability and unreliability shall be presented. Table of Content 1. Introduction to Reliable and Unreliable Narration 2. Signals for Unreliable Narration Inside the Main Text 2.1 Different Types of Unreliable Narrators 2.2 Point of View 2.3 Characters 3. Signals Outside the Text for (Un-) Reliable Narration 3.1 Records of the Real Author, the Story and the Text Itself 3.2 The Knowledge of the Reader 4. Text Signals for (Un-) Reliable Narration 4.1 Admitted Unreliability 4.2. Paratextual Signals 4.3 Explicit Contradictions of the Narrator 4.4 Discrepancies between the Reconstructed and Narrated Story 4.5 Signals for a High Degree of Emotional Involvement 4.6 Deliberate Addressing and Controlling of the Reader 4.7 Genre, Copying and Language Style 5. Conclusion 6. Works Cited