First Among the Brontës
All first-person narrators are unreliable, and yet all must be reliable in the sense of having a story to tell. They serve, in plotted fiction, both a diegetic and a mimetic function: as narrators, they may dictate the sequence and selection of plot events and may disclose or withhold key information at any point; as characters within the world of the story, however, they must experience plot events in time sequence and in a manner that motivates, and makes possible, future narration. In this lecture I will examine, from a practitioner’s point of view, the uniquely dual relationship between first-person narration and plot as exemplified in the novels of the Brontë sisters, from Anne’s diaries and letters to Emily’s frames and Charlotte’s confidences and suppressions, exploring the ways in which the first person brings narration itself into the realm of dramatic action and productively exploits the tension between what appears to have been fated and what appears to have been willed.
