Throughout the latter years of my high school career, the questions of “Is the narrator telling the truth?” seems to always come about in class discussions. Now, before I was introduced to this kind of questioning, I always just assumed that the narrator of a story was always being truthful, or else there would be no reason to tell us the story in the first place. But, nearing my senior year of high school, it seems like the reliability of a narrator is always something that must be questioned in any and every book one reads. It almost seems counterintuitive to ask, after finishing a story, whether or not the narrator was actually telling the truth. Why would you read a story that you know isn’t true? But, when it came time for “De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period”, the reliability of the narrator, Jean De Daumier-Smith, proved to be a topic worth discussing. Now, right off the bat, we can see the Jean is an interesting character to say the least. Even in his opening paragraph we can see that there is something just off about him. His constant interjections within his sentences distract from the subject of his thoughts, making him come off as arrogant and obnoxious. To be honest, I hated Jean’s character in the beginning. He came off as trying to act very posh, seemingly making us feel like we were subordinate to him. It isn’t until his fills out his application to work for M. Yoshito, that we begin to see a hidden side of Jean.
While applying for the art teacher job, Jean feels the need to lie about numerous aspects of his life in order to appear capable for the job. He even proclaims that he and his family was friends with Pablo Picasso for peat’s sake! Jean feels unconfident with his current character, so he fabricates aspects of his life to make him seemingly appear more appealing. Now, Jean does get the job, but this seems to have negative effects. He feels the need to play this character that he has convinced his employers to hire. While working he even tries to think of new false stories about the times he “hung out” with Picasso. Being hired only showed Jean that he needs to fabricate aspects of his life in order to be accepted. This plays along with Jean’s constant feeling of loneliness. Only recently has his mother died and so Jean is left with his stepfather, Bobby. (Of which it doesn’t help that Bobby has seemed to have moved on, since he is already eating dinner with another lady). So, Jean tries to downplay his loneliness by extremely playing up other aspects of his character. In this situation, he decides to exercise his ability to lie. Similarly, in “For Esmé--with Love and Squalor”, Esmé tries very hard to sound like an adult by having a pretentious vocabulary. She’s just trying to fit in among adults, but since she is a kid and doesn’t necessarily understand the meaning behind all the words she chooses to use, she ends up sounding a little bit on the ridiculous side. Similarly, Jean attempts to appear as this art prodigy, when in reality, he is just nineteen and naive.
With all this being said, even if Jean can be seen as a sympathetic character, do we trust him? I mean, he has proved to be a decent liar, and I wouldn’t put it past him to possibly lie in order to get us on his good side. Does it ruin the story if some of it is fabricated? I honestly can’t say. All I know is that it is a little unsettling to have to question a narrative because, especially since it’s a short story, what Jean says is all we get. We experienced something similar to this when reading The Things They Carried in which the narrator shares with us the difference between the truth-truth and the story-truth. Now, when I read stories, I tend to just assume that the words on the page are the truth. I assume that the narrator and I have this bond and that he or she feels confident in sharing the true story with me. But, throughout my english career, I have realized that this is not always the case. Unfortunately, us readers are just as untrustworthy as the rest of them. Only, we are (or at least in my case) more gullible. I feel like my emotions are being played with, but, either way, Jean tells a pretty good story, so I suppose it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not.
Maddie, I really enjoyed reading your post! I get what you mean when you say you find yourself taking the author’s words as the truth--that seems like what is expected from us as readers? It’s a little weird, but this semester I discovered that when the narrator or characters in a story lie about something and admit that they are lying, I find them more appealing and enjoyable. The person who is lying usually has good reasons too and is striving to achieve a certain goal--O’Brien wants to tell a “true” war story, Esmé wants to come across as more mature, and Jean is doing and saying whatever he can, even making himself switch to French if necessary, to get the job of the painter. They are excited to live, to achieve their goals, and to get somewhere, and I feel like it almost makes them more real than the truthful but too honest characters who accept and admit things as they are. And somehow for me the stories with lies, such as “De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period,” are often the funniest to read just because of the obnoxious lies.
ReplyDeleteI can totally relate! I've always assumed I can trust the narrator to be telling me the truth. When I found out there's a possibility they're compromising the truth, I feel as if they've broken an unspoken contract. Though with O'Brian, I felt that O'Brian was justified with his way of story telling because he openly confessed that what he was doing was for the sake of the real truth. But with Jean I don't feel that same connection.
ReplyDeleteThe question of truthfulness came up not only in this story, but in the previous as well. "Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes" featured a third person narrator who revealed little about the actual events transpiring, but both participants in the dialogue that makes up much of the text have their honesty called into question. While Lee first seems like a helpful friend, many small hints suggest that he is lying through his teeth and sleeping with Joanie. And Arthur, initially earnest, calls Lee back to tell him Joanie is home when all other signs point toward Joanie being in bed with Lee. I trusted both of these characters in my first reading of this story, but a closer examination revealed I was wrong to do so.
ReplyDeleteIt is extremely disorienting when you're constantly wondering if the narrator is lying or telling the truth. Nevertheless, I think that we can still learn about the narrator from his/her lies. The lies the narrators choose to tell can help us better understand what they feel the need to lie about. Are they insecure? Afraid? Trying to make a point?
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