Unreliable Narrator
Unreliable Narrator: A narrator whose account the reader has reason to doubt - through madness, bias, ignorance or deceit.
An unreliable narrator makes the telling itself the mystery: the reader reads two stories at once - the one being told, and the truth leaking through its cracks.
Unreliable Narrator examples
"The narrator insists on his sanity while describing the murder he committed because of an old man's eye."
— The Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe
"Humbert Humbert's elegant self-defence is the novel's indictment of him."
— Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
"Agatha Christie's most famous twist turns on who has been narrating all along."
— The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie
"Nick Carraway calls himself one of the few honest people he has ever known - and readers have argued about it ever since."
— The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Spot the Unreliable Narrator
Score: 0/0A narrator whose account the reader has reason to doubt - through madness, bias, ignorance or deceit.
"The narrator insists on his sanity while describing the murder he committed because of an old man's eye."
Which work is this from?
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Unreliable Narrator: common questions
What is unreliable narrator in literature?
A narrator whose account the reader has reason to doubt - through madness, bias, ignorance or deceit. An unreliable narrator makes the telling itself the mystery: the reader reads two stories at once - the one being told, and the truth leaking through its cracks.
What is an example of unreliable narrator?
A classic example is "The narrator insists on his sanity while describing the murder he committed because of an old man's eye." (The Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe).
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