How to shoot an unreliable narrator in the face.
In Pan: From the Papers of Lieutenant Thomas Glahn, Knut Hamsun’s narrator, the titular Thomas Glahn, is a classic example of an unreliable narrator. The majority of the novel is Glahn’s account of a brief and jealousy-filled love affair that he once had in Nordland with a woman named Edvarda, but being a jealousy-filled affair, Glahn’s interpretation of the motives of those around him are based on suspicions about what truly beats in the heart and plays in the mind of his lover, and so the reader is never quite sure how accurate the retelling may be. It is this air of ambiguity that makes a particular reading of the epilogue of Hamsun’s novel so intriguing.
Entitled “Glahn’s Death: A document from 1861,†the epilogue takes the form of an unsigned confession and is intended as a response to an “idiotic advertisement offering such and such a reward for information†(126) pertaining to the whereabouts of Lieutenant Thomas Glahn. Its author—spurred on by a hatred born from jealousy—admits to killing Glahn, writing, “I slammed my rifle to my cheek, aimed straight at his face and pulled the trigger†(126), but because he believes Glahn asked for it (much of the final pages is Glahn taunting the man to kill him—at least, that’s how the incident is recalled by the confessor), he can also write without hesitation, “Thomas Glahn died in accident, killed by an accidental shot while hunting in India…and [the] register…says that he is dead, I tell you, even that he died the victim of a stray bullet.â€
The story of Glahn’s death is connected to the rest of the novel through several factors—primarily, by the implication that Glahn’s death-wish is related to a letter he receives in India, a letter “written in a woman’s hand†(118) that the confessor thinks might have been from Edvarda, “his former friend, the high-ranking lady†(118); but perhaps the most intriguing connection is the way the confessor recounts a specific element of Glahn’s personality, namely, the trait of doing a good deed and telling others that it was done by another (in this case, killing a leopard and then telling the confessor’s girlfriend that the confessor had helped kill it; the confessor takes this as a sign of Glahn’s vanity and it contributes to his hatred for the Lieutenant). In the Nordland section, this trait is displayed, not by Glahn, but by Edvarda: “She’s waiting for a prince…[a] gallant who [commits an] extravagant absurdity…. When you didn’t do it, she did it herself, in your name. That’s the way she is†(55-56).
What is intriguing about this connection is the way that Glahn has become Edvarda’s gallant prince. He has become the extravagant absurdity that she desires. Throughout the confessor’s tale, he makes mention of Glahn’s happiness, and admits that “Thomas Glahn was in many ways an exceptional and lovable man. In fairness to him I must admit this, despite the fact that…his memory arouses my hatred†(111). It is only after he receives the letter from Edvarda that Glahn begins to seek suicide by enraging the jealousy of the confessor and then taunting the man to shoot him while out hunting together.
Now, imagine for a moment that the confessor’s letter is not written by an unnamed man, but rather, is Glahn’s fabrication of his own death. It is motivated by the letter he receives while in India, Edvarda’s final and ultimate rejection of him. Instead of writing something scathing (or cloying) back to his former love, and instead of slinking off into obscurity, Glahn writes an open letter to his family—1) it has the feel of an open letter; 2) it must be open so that Edvarda may see it—claiming that Glahn has been killed; but even more, he writes the letter in such a way as to illustrate himself as Edvarda’s true prince. What better way to inflict the ultimate pain upon Edvarda than by suggesting he had evolved into the man of her dreams only to commit suicide after suffering from her ignorant rejection?
This is not out of character for Glahn. In the course of the Nordland section, Glahn takes several imprudent actions. He causes a rock avalanche that accidentally kills the woman whom he strung along in the wake of Edvarda. In response to a request that he leave his dog with her when he departs the Nordland, Glahn shoots his dog—a trusted and loved companion—dead and has it delivered to Edvarda by a messenger. This is a man who spits in the ear of Edvarda’s fiancé in the midst of a dinner party, and who shoots himself in the foot in self-pity. Writing a spurious confession, faking his own death: these are reasonable actions for a man such as Thomas Glahn.
But posing as an unreliable narrator who commits an irrational act enflamed by jealousy? Of Lieutenant Thomas Glahn, there could be nothing more identifiable.