Much of the time the narrator of stories is completely reliable, accurately describing events around them. The audience quickly gets used to it and so is easily surprised by twists and turns. I'm not sure why we usually trust a story's narrator, but I certainly do. Maybe it's because the story won't make much sense if the narrator is complicating things with all kinds of lies. That's the easy answer. I think audiences prefer not being tasked with deciphering the story they are enjoying. But, like everything in life, there are exceptions.
 |
| Sherlock Holmes and Watson |
I think of the stories of "Sherlock Holmes" and the narrator, Watson. In this situation, the narrator is not the brilliant mind--though he is very capable himself--yet he is methodical in narration. In fact, the only doubt is on Sherlock's shoulders, as he is constantly obscuring information and coming at cases from odd angles. That's all in the fun of a "Sherlock Holmes" story though, and so we follow poor Watson in our own deductions. From a writer's point of view, having the narrator not be Sherlock makes it possible to point out facts without giving away the solution to the mystery--because Watson is prone to noting red herrings while ignoring items Holmes himself is examining.
A perspective quite a few stories take is the omniscient third-person narrator--which allows the audience to know the thoughts of anyone and the activities of anything. The all-knowing viewpoint. You can hardly mistrust anything presented this way. Movies are usually this format, since it's really hard to do it differently without narrowing the presentation to simply following the main character around. The downside is this viewpoint doesn't color the narration with any kind of emotion and relies on the characters and events to portray it instead.
Personally, I usually like accurate narrators much more than twisted or lying narrators. But, there are times when I long for a mystery and topsy-turvy joy.
- M
No comments:
Post a Comment