The omniscient narrator, I often hear, was prevalent in the fiction of the 19th century, but, as we became more sophisticated – or, to be more specific, as we stopped believing in God, and hence, in the possibility of omniscience – we found ourselves more in sympathy with fiction that is told from the perspective of a narrator with a limited viewpoint, or even an unreliable one.
I have heard such a view often expressed, and am sceptical – as, indeed, I am of any pat explanation of any complex issue. In the first place, not all of us have stopped believing in God. In the second place, the unreliable narrator, though admittedly more common in twentieth century fiction than previously, is by no means a modernist invention: Defoe’s Roxana is narrated from the perspective of a very unreliable narrator (as are, I think, though admittedly to a somewhat lesser extent, Robinson Crusoe and Moll Fanders); Gulliver is increasingly unreliable as he becomes increasingly unhinged; and the unreliability of narration is itself among the major themes in possibly the earliest major prose narrative in European fiction, Don Quixote. Indeed, given that the more fantastic episodes of The Odyssey are related in Odysseus’ narrative, one may even consider Homer to have pre-empted all subsequent writers when it comes to this “unreliable narrator” lark.
Most importantly, I think, fiction in which the author enters at will into the minds of the various characters continues to be written to this day, and is widely read; and I’d be very surprised if even the most dogged of atheists has ever found anything incongruous in such narrations on the ground that God doesn’t exist. We are, after all, so adept in suspending our disbelief over so many things when it comes to fiction, that a little matter of an author who knows what all the characters are thinking is hardly likely to prove a major stumbling block. No – if we want to know what the attraction is of the unreliable narrator, we need to dig a bit deeper than this.
Even if we consider the traditional Victorian novel, the high point, as many would have it, of narration from an omniscient viewpoint, we may find passages such as this:
Possibly there was some unrecognised agent secretly busy in Arthur’s mind at this moment – possibly it was the fear lest he might hereafter find the fact of his having made a confession to the Rector a serious annoyance, in case he should not be able to carry out his good resolutions? I dare not assert it was not so. The human soul is a very complex thing.
[From Part 1, Chapter 16 of Adam Bede by George Eliot]
“Possibly … possibly … I dare not assert …” Even in a novel often regarded by many as the epitome of a narration from an omniscient perspective, George Eliot confesses that the human soul is too complex to ever be fully dissected. And at this point, she steps back from omniscience.
And this creates an inconsistency. How can she know certain things hidden from mortal knowledge, but confess uncertainty on – or even ignorance of – others? This is an inconsistency we find frequently in omniscient narrations. Even Tolstoy, who has possibly analysed a greater range of characters to a greater depth than has any other novelist, can but remain silent when Karenin, his life falling apart, his mind in turmoil over all sorts of things, breaks into a spontaneous smile on seeing his wife’s illegitimate baby. There comes a point when even Tolstoy must acknowledge, as George Eliot does, that the human soul is a very complex thing – too complex, indeed, even for his gaze.
Of course, Tolstoy could have invented some reason or other for Karenin’s smile. Or, more easily, he may not have had Karenin smile at all. But Karenin must smile here. Tolstoy may not know exactly why Karenin should smile at this point, but he knows that he must. Tolstoy’s imagination has led him where his analysis cannot quite follow. And where even Tolstoy’s analysis cannot follow , what chance do we lesser mortals have?
For Tolstoy knew – as did all writers of stature – that there is a mystery at the heart of human existence, a mystery in the recesses of the human mind. That is not to say that one should not probe for reasons: after all, the certainty that we shall never understand all the mysteries of the universe does not prevent scientists from attempting to uncover as much as they can. And, paradoxically, the more they uncover, the more mysterious the universe seems to be, and more wonderful: relativity and quantum physics have made the universe appear more mysterious and more wonderful, not less. The human mind also is just such a mystery: the more we understand about it, the more we uncover, the more mysterious, the more wonderful, it appears. And if fiction is to hold up a mirror to nature, then the best fiction must mirror this sense of mystery – this mystery that, paradoxically, becomes more profound the more we understand.
Shakespeare knew this also, of course. Hamlet, the most contemplative and circumspect of all characters, could also commit rash acts in the heat of the moment, and yet remain, as a character, a coherent and unified entity. How Shakespeare achieved this has been analysed and discussed for centuries, and, while analysis and discussion have undoubtedly deepened our understanding, they have but made the mysteries at the heart of Hamlet’s character appear even more extraordinary. Hamlet knew this as well, of course: when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern attempt to tease out of Hamlet his mystery, he mocks them:
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. ‘Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?
And Hamlet’s mockery has haunted commentators ever since. The more intently we analyse, the more we understand, the more we realise the impossibility of plucking out the heart of Hamlet’s mystery. The closer we come to this heart, the more inscrutable it seems.
And this, I think, is the attraction of the narrator with limited perspectives, or of the unreliable narrator: the omniscient narrator – unless, like George Eliot or Leo Tolstoy, they step back from their omniscience once in a while – has to know everything; and when the author knows everything, there is no mystery; and the mirror held up to nature diminishes what it purports to reflect. The technique of using a narrator with a limited perspective, or even with an unreliable perspective, allows the author’s imagination to penetrate into regions where even the author’s understanding cannot quite follow. The creations of the greatest authors remain mysterious even to the authors themselves.
The Argumentative Old Git 