“Off” introduces the idea of the unreliable narrator. From my experience, unreliable narration occurs when the credibility of the speaker is in doubt or compromised. In “Off,” the rational judgement of the narrator is immediately in question with her unexplained, fervid goal to kiss men of three different hair colors, of “flavors,” as she later describes, at a party. As we as readers learn more about her past, her thoughts, and her mind, it becomes even clearer that she is most likely not all she professes to be. This culminates in her cool and seemingly practical (to her) plan to lure the last man into her embraces by hiding with everyone’s coats, a plan that is not only childish but also deeply irrational.
The character of the unnamed narrator at first glance seems stereotypical in her outwards characteristics, being pretty, rich, and self-centered, but she is made interesting through our questioning of her mental state in unsettling vignettes like her account of the deadly elements hidden within her painting, and her instructor’s apparent failure to notice them, which caused the narrator a deep urge to have her fired, which she did successfully. Is the narrator really so talented at painting, and conversely, was her teacher really so clueless? The reader cannot be sure either, but from the tone of her thoughts, we assume that reality is not actually as presented and her talent and beauty not as self-evident, a trait that points to the narcissism we might already suspect from her constant assumptions of the thoughts and feelings of others. The speaker subverts stereotypes and materialism while at the same time reinforcing them herself, as when she describes how a beautiful dress transformed her “friend,” the hose of the party, into “a whole different genre of person.”
From this story I learned who to complicate and make more interesting a character that could at first glance seem one-dimensional, a skill I struggle with in my own writing. My characters frequently come across as props, as stand-ins for societal stereotypes or issues, rather than three-dimensional, living beings with both good qualities as well as bad, or vice versa. In the search to make a particular point, I end up seeking only to “make undeniable the validity of [my] particular ideological system,” as Rick Moody phrased it, through the lessons imparted by moral stand-ins, rather than really telling a story, which is, after all, supposedly the reason I started in the first place. Thus, complicating my characters would help broaden the reach of my stories as a whole.
Good character analysis here.
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