Exploring Fiction
Prerequisites: UCLR 100, UCLR 100C, UCLR 100E, UCLR 100M, or equivalent; please check requirements for declared majors/minors for exceptions.
This course focuses on the understanding, appreciation, and criticism of prose fiction.
Outcomes: Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of fiction as a means of exploring human experience and understanding the creative process, and be able to use the technical vocabulary necessary for understanding fiction.
Prerequisites: UCLR 100, UCLR 100C, UCLR 100E, UCLR 100M, or equivalent; please check requirements for declared majors/minors for exceptions.
This course focuses on the understanding, appreciation, and criticism of prose fiction.
Outcomes: Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of fiction as a means of exploring human experience and understanding the creative process, and be able to use the technical vocabulary necessary for understanding fiction.
Tier 2 Literary Knowledge
This is a writing intensive class. A grade of C- or better in UCWR 110 is required to enroll.
Understanding the Unreliable Narrator
The term ¿unreliable narrator¿ refers to a narrator whose understanding and narrative cannot be fully trusted (whether because said narrator does not fully understand circumstances or because they have reason to lie to their audience or themselves). However, given that we receive the entirety of a story through the narrator, how do we come to understand this unreliability and the ways it skews the narrative we¿re consuming? Put more simply, how do we determine what is true and false? And what is the point of using unreliability? Why filter narratives through untrustworthy characters when it can produce confusion and extra work for the reader?
By looking at a variety of fictional works (both novels and short stories), we¿ll see how unreliable narrators reveal the forces that prevent the individual from grasping truth and reaching self-actualization, how they allow us to investigate the many ways truth is shielded and hidden, and how they offer unique insight on how and why we lie to ourselves (personally and as a culture). Ultimately, understanding the unreliable narrator as a literary device reveals the fears and values of the prevailing culture. And the damage these fears and values inflict on the individual who stands apart.
Readings will include works by the some of the following: James Baldwin, Louise Erdrich, Edgar Allan Poe, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Vladimir Nabokov, Mary Gaitskill, Tim O¿Brien, Kim Coleman Foote, Bret Easton Ellis, and/or Kazuo Ishiguro. Beyond the readings, course work will include one quiz during the first half of the semester as well as a midterm and final exam. Note: This is a writing intensive course. As such, we will spend a good amount of time discussing writing conventions in the literary field and completing small in-class writing exercises. Longer writing assignments include: one response paper (2 pages) and two developed essays (4 pages and 6 pages).
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