The Liar's Paradox in Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground
Abstract
In this article the Liar’s Paradox is examined in reference to Dostoevsky’s novel Notes from the Underground (1864). First the concept of unreliable narrator is discussed and examined within the genres of autobiography and ‘confession’, where the narrator not always tells the truth but sometimes intentionally lies in order to obtain the reader’s sympathy and admiration. Then the narrative strategies of the Man from the underground are analyzed and a series of “extreme” narrative devices (Richardson 2006) are identified, such as epanorthosis, denarration, disnarration. All of these narrative devices realize verbally the Liar’s paradox which traps the Man from the Underground into a vicious circle from which it is impossible to exit.
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