Unreliable Narration and Fictional Truth

Abstract

The concept of unreliable narration is intimately linked with the concept of fictional truth. The question what is true in the fictional world of a narrative fiction is in itself one of the most intriguing problems of literary studies, but the difficulties related to answering the question become even more severe when dealing with unreliable narration. The article addresses the inference of fictional truth in unreliable narrations (part 2) against the background of what it generally means to explore fictional worlds and to infer fictional truth (part 1). The discussions are based on an institutional theory of fictionality and draw upon various attempts to adapt possible-worlds theory to literary studies.