"Todo es mentira, la verdad": El narrador no fiable en El espiritu de mis padres sigue subiendo en la lluvia (2011), de Patricio Pron

Abstract

The novel El espiritu de mis padres sigue subiendo en la lluvia (2011) by Patricio Pron addresses the theme of personal memory and also the collective memory of the Argentinean people during the last dictatorship (1976-1983). This study focuses on the narration of this memory in the novel. It investigates the manifestation of the unreliable narrator of the novel and the consequences of this narrative when it comes to narrating a traumatic story. This study analyzes the work through a methodology that focuses on narratology and thus offers the necessary arguments to demonstrate the relationship between the unreliable narrator and the traumatic story he is telling. To answer this question, the concepts of auto-, meta- and docufiction are explained. These concepts have a link with the notion of the unreliable narrator and with the inclusion of real facts in a work of fiction. The conclusion about the juxtaposition of truth and deception is that the narrator does not deceive the reader, but makes him question everything that seems to be true. The consequence of an unreliable narration when telling a traumatic history is that we, as readers, are compelled to the narrator in his search for the truth. Therefore this study argues that there is a clear relationship between the unreliable narrator and the traumatic history in the novel of Patricio Pron.