In
literature
Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...
,
film
A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...
, and other such
arts
The arts or creative arts are a vast range of human practices involving creativity, creative expression, storytelling, and cultural participation. The arts encompass diverse and plural modes of thought, deeds, and existence in an extensive ...
, an unreliable narrator is a
narrator
Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the ...
who cannot be trusted, one whose credibility is compromised.
They can be found in a wide range from children to mature characters. While unreliable narrators are almost by definition
first-person narrators, arguments have been made for the existence of unreliable
second- and
third-person narrators, especially within the context of film and television, but sometimes also in literature.
The term “unreliable narrator” was coined by
Wayne C. Booth in his 1961 book ''The Rhetoric of Fiction''.
James Phelan expands on Booth’s concept by offering the term “bonding unreliability” to describe situations in which the unreliable narration ultimately serves to approach the narrator to the work’s envisioned audience, creating a bonding communication between the
implied author and this “authorial audience.”
Sometimes the narrator's unreliability is made immediately evident. For instance, a story may open with the narrator making a plainly false or delusional claim or admitting to being severely mentally ill, or the story itself may have a
frame
A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent.
Frame and FRAME may also refer to:
Physical objects
In building construction
*Framing (con ...
in which the narrator appears as a character, with clues to the character's unreliability. A more dramatic use of the device delays the revelation until near the story's end. In some cases, the reader discovers that in the foregoing narrative, the narrator had concealed or greatly misrepresented vital pieces of information. Such a
twist ending
A plot twist is a literary technique that introduces a radical change in the direction or expected outcome of the plot in a work of fiction. When it happens near the end of a story, it is known as a twist ending or surprise ending. It may change ...
forces readers to reconsider their
point of view
Point of View or Points of View may refer to:
Concept and technique
* Point of view (literature) or narrative mode, the perspective of the narrative voice; the pronoun used in narration
* Point of view (philosophy), an attitude how one sees or ...
and experience of the story. In some cases the narrator's unreliability is never fully revealed but only hinted at, leaving readers to wonder how much the narrator should be trusted and how the story should be interpreted.
Classification
Attempts have been made at a classification of unreliable narrators. William Riggan analysed in a 1981 study four discernible types of unreliable narrators, focusing on the first-person narrator as this is the most common kind of unreliable narration.
Riggan provides the following definitions and examples to illustrate his classifications:
;The Pícaro: The first-person narrator of a
picaresque novel
The picaresque novel ( Spanish: ''picaresca'', from ''pícaro'', for ' rogue' or 'rascal') is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish but appealing hero, usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corrup ...
; an
antihero
An antihero (sometimes spelled as anti-hero or two words anti hero) or anti-heroine is a character in a narrative (in literature, film, TV, etc.) who may lack some conventional heroic qualities and attributes, such as idealism and morality. Al ...
serving as "an embodiment of the obstinacy of sin", whose "behavior is marked by rebelliousness", resentment, and aggression, and whose "world view is characterized by resignation and pessimism". A gap exists between the pícaro's "whimsical and entertaining account and his self-indulgent explanations and morality on the one hand, and the perceptions of the more sensitive author and reader on the other". The pícaro is the "unwitting butt" of this narrative irony.
:Riggan gives the following examples of pícaro narrators:
Apuleius
Apuleius ( ), also called Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis (c. 124 – after 170), was a Numidians, Numidian Latin-language prose writer, Platonist philosopher and rhetorician. He was born in the Roman Empire, Roman Numidia (Roman province), province ...
in ''
The Golden Ass
The ''Metamorphoses'' of Apuleius, which Augustine of Hippo referred to as ''The Golden Ass'' (Latin: ''Asinus aureus''), is the only ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety.
The protagonist of the novel is Lucius. At the end of ...
''; Lázaro in ''
Lazarillo de Tormes
''The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and of His Fortunes and Adversities'' ( ) is a Spanish novella, published anonymously because of its anticlerical content. It was published simultaneously in three cities in 1554: Alcalá de Henares, Burgos a ...
''; Guzmán in ''
Guzmán de Alfarache
''Guzmán de Alfarache'' () is a picaresque novel written by Mateo Alemán and published in two parts: the first in Madrid in 1599 with the title , and the second in 1604, titled '.
The works tells the first person adventures of a ''picaro'', a ...
''; Don Pablos in ''
El Buscón
''El Buscón'' (full title ''Historia de la vida del Buscón, llamado Don Pablos, ejemplo de vagamundos y espejo de tacaños'' (literally: History of the life of the Swindler, called Don Pablos, model for hobos and mirror of misers); translated as ...
''; Simplicius in
Simplicius Simplicissimus
''Simplicius Simplicissimus'' () is a picaresque novel of the lower Baroque style, written in five books by German author Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen published in 1668, with the sequel ''Continuatio'' appearing in 1669. Inspired b ...
; Moll in ''
Moll Flanders
''Moll Flanders'' is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1722. It purports to be the true account of the life of the eponymous Moll, detailing her exploits from birth until old age.
By 1721, Defoe had become a recognised novelist, wit ...
''; Augie March in ''
The Adventures of Augie March
''The Adventures of Augie March'' is a picaresque novel by Saul Bellow, published in 1953 by Viking Press. It features the eponymous Augie March, who grows up during the Great Depression, and it is an example of ''Bildungsroman'', tracing the d ...
''; Felix Krull in ''
Confessions of Felix Krull
''Confessions of Felix Krull'' () is an unfinished 1954 novel by the Germany, German author Thomas Mann.
Synopsis
The novel is narrated by the protagonist, an impostor and adventurer named Felix Krull, the son of a ruined Rhineland winemaker. F ...
''
;The Clown: A narrator in the tradition of the
fool, the
court jester
A jester, also known as joker, court jester, or fool, was a member of the household of a nobleman or a monarch kept to entertain guests at the royal court. Jesters were also travelling performers who entertained common folk at fairs and town ma ...
and the
sotie
A ''sotie'' (or ''sottie'') is a short satirical play common in 15th- and 16th-century in France. The word (compare modern ''sottise'') comes from the ''sots'', "fools", who appeared as characters in the play. In the plays, these fools would make ...
, whose unreliable narration includes "irony, variations of meaning, ambiguities of definition, and possibilities for reversal and counter-reversal".
:Riggan gives the following examples of clown narrators: Folly in ''
In Praise of Folly
''In Praise of Folly'', also translated as ''The Praise of Folly'' ( or ), is an essay written in Latin in 1509 by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam and first printed in June 1511. Inspired by previous works of the Italian Renaissance humanism, hu ...
'' ; Tristram Shandy in ''
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'', also known as ''Tristram Shandy'', is a humorous novel by Laurence Sterne. It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others following over the next sev ...
''; Humbert Humbert in ''
Lolita
''Lolita'' is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The protagonist and narrator is a French literature professor who moves to New England and writes under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert. He details his obsession ...
''; Oskar Matzerath in ''
The Tin Drum
''The Tin Drum'' (, ) is a 1959 novel by Günter Grass, the first book of his Danzig Trilogy. It was adapted into a 1979 film, which won both the 1979 Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1980.
To "beat a ti ...
''
;The Madman: A narrator who is untrustworthy due to an "unbalanced mind" whose narration serves as a case study in the pathology of insanity. The literary madman frequently exhibits traits such as being "insignificant, petty, withdrawn, defensive, dreaming, spiteful, perversely logical, self-deluding, ultimately more of a type than a genuine individual, and a speaker who is soon if not immediately perceived as possessing all these traits and therefore of questionable trustworthiness in the presentation of his own account".
:Riggan gives the following examples of madman narrators: Poprishchin in ''
Diary of a Madman''; the narrator of ''
Notes from Underground
''Notes from Underground'' ( pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform Russian: ; also translated as ''Notes from the Underground'' or ''Letters from the Underworld'') is a novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky first published in the journal ''Epoch'' in 1864. ...
''; the first person narratives of
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely re ...
's short stories; the narrator of ''
The Blind Owl''
;The Naïf: A narrator whose nature is revealed through their own narration and without their conscious awareness. The naïf narrator lacks the experience "to deal in any far-reaching manner with the moral, ethical, emotional, and intellectual questions which arise from his first ventures into the world and from his account of those ventures."
:Riggan gives the following examples of naïf narrators:
Huckleberry Finn
Huckleberry "Huck" Finn is a fictional character created by Mark Twain who first appeared in the book ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876) and is the protagonist and narrator of its sequel, '' Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1884). He is 12 ...
in ''
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' is a picaresque novel by American author Mark Twain that was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885.
Commonly named among the Great American Novels, th ...
'';
Holden Caulfield
Holden Caulfield (identified as "Holden Morrisey Caulfield" in the story "Slight Rebellion Off Madison", and "Holden V. Caulfield" in ''The Catcher in the Rye'') is a fictional character in the works of author J. D. Salinger. He is most famous f ...
in ''
The Catcher in the Rye
''The Catcher in the Rye'' is the only novel by American author J. D. Salinger. It was partially published in serial form in 1945–46 before being novelized in 1951. Originally intended for adults, it is often read by adolescents for its theme ...
''
Kathleen Wall argues that in ''
The Remains of the Day'', for the "unreliability" of the main character (Mr Stevens) as a narrator to work, we need to believe that he describes events reliably, while interpreting them in an unreliable way.
Definitions and theoretical approaches
Wayne C. Booth was among the first critics to formulate a reader-centered approach to unreliable narration and to distinguish between a reliable and unreliable narrator on the grounds of whether the narrator's speech violates or conforms with general norms and values. He writes, "I have called a narrator ''reliable'' when he speaks for or acts in accordance with the norms of the work (which is to say the
implied author's norms), ''unreliable'' when he does not."
[ Peter J. Rabinowitz criticized Booth's definition for relying too much on facts external to the narrative, such as norms and ethics, which must necessarily be tainted by personal opinion. He consequently modified the approach to unreliable narration.
Rabinowitz's main focus is the status of fictional discourse in opposition to factuality. He debates the issues of truth in fiction, bringing forward four types of audience who serve as receptors of any given literary work:
# "Actual audience" (= the flesh-and-blood people who read the book)
# "Authorial audience" (= hypothetical audience to whom the author addresses his text)
# "Narrative audience" (= imitation audience which also possesses particular knowledge)
# "Ideal narrative audience" (= uncritical audience who accepts what the narrator is saying)
Rabinowitz suggests that "In the proper reading of a novel, then, events which are portrayed must be treated as both 'true' and 'untrue' at the same time. Although there are many ways to understand this duality, I propose to analyze the four audiences which it generates."][Rabinowitz, Peter J.: ''Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences.'' In: ''Critical Inquiry.'' Nr. 1, 1977, S. 121–141.] Similarly, Tamar Yacobi has proposed a model of five criteria ('integrating mechanisms') which determine if a narrator is unreliable. Instead of relying on the device of the implied author and a text-centered analysis of unreliable narration, Ansgar Nünning gives evidence that narrative unreliability can be reconceptualized in the context of frame theory and of readers' cognitive strategies.
Unreliable narration in this view becomes purely a reader's strategy of making sense of a text, i.e., of reconciling discrepancies in the narrator's account (c.f. signals of unreliable narration). Nünning thus effectively eliminates the reliance on value judgments and moral codes which are always tainted by personal outlook and taste. Greta Olson recently debated both Nünning's and Booth's models, revealing discrepancies in their respective views.
and offers "an update of Booth's model by making his implicit differentiation between fallible and untrustworthy narrators explicit". Olson then argues "that these two types of narrators elicit different responses in readers and are best described using scales for fallibility and untrustworthiness." She proffers that all fictional texts that employ the device of unreliability can best be considered along a spectrum of fallibility that begins with trustworthiness and ends with unreliability. This model allows for all shades of grey in between the poles of trustworthiness and unreliability. It is consequently up to each individual reader to determine the credibility of a narrator in a fictional text.
Signals of unreliable narration
Whichever definition of unreliability one follows, there are a number of signs that constitute or at least hint at a narrator's unreliability. Nünning has suggested to divide these signals into three broad categories.[Nünning, Ansgar (ed.): ''Unreliable Narration'': Studien zur Theorie und Praxis unglaubwürdigen Erzählens in der englischsprachigen Erzählliteratur, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag: Trier (1998).]
* Intratextual signs such as the narrator contradicting her or himself, having gaps in memory, or lying to other characters
* Extratextual signs such as contradicting the reader's general world knowledge or impossibilities (within the parameters of logic)
* Reader's literary competence. This includes the reader's knowledge about literary types (e.g., stock characters that reappear over centuries), knowledge about literary genres and its conventions or stylistic devices
See also
* Frame story
A frame story (also known as a frame tale, frame narrative, sandwich narrative, or intercalation) is a literary technique that serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, where an introductory or main narrative sets the stage either fo ...
* Play within a play
A story within a story, also referred to as an embedded narrative, is a literary device in which a character within a story becomes the narrator of a second story (within the first one). Multiple layers of stories within stories are sometime ...
* Rashomon effect
The Rashomon effect is the phenomenon of the unreliability of eyewitnesses.
The effect is named after Akira Kurosawa's 1950 Japanese film '' Rashomon'', in which a murder is described in four contradictory ways by four witnesses.
It has been use ...
, different narrators providing different accounts or stories of the same narrative events
* Tall tale
A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some tall tales are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories ("the fish that got away") such as, "That fish was so big, why I tell ya', it ...
References
Further reading
*
* Shen, Dan:
Unreliability
, in Peter Hühn (ed.): The Living Handbook of Narratology, Hamburg: Hamburg University Press. (retrieved 8. March 2021)
* Smith, M. W. (1991). ''Understanding Unreliable Narrators''. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
External links
*
Henry Sutton's top 10 unreliable narrators
{{Narrative modes, state=collapsed
Film theory
Style (fiction)
Point of view
Narrative techniques
1960s neologisms