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{{short description|Narrator whose credibility is compromised}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2012}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2015}}
[[File:Paul Gustave Doré (1832-1883) - Baron von Münchhausen (1862) - 009.jpg|right|thumb|Illustration by [[Gustave Doré]] for [[Baron Münchhausen]]: tall tales, such as those of the Baron, often feature unreliable narrators.]]
[[File:Gustave Doré - Baron von Münchhausen - 067.jpg|right|thumb|Illustration by [[Gustave Doré]] of [[Baron Munchausen]]'s tale of being swallowed by a whale. [[Tall tale]]s, such as those of the Baron, often feature unreliable narrators.]]


In [[literature]], [[film]], and other such [[arts]], an '''unreliable narrator''' is a [[narrator]] who cannot be trusted, one whose credibility is compromised.<ref name=frey>{{cite book |last=Frey |first=James N. |author-link=James N. Frey |title=How to Write a Damn Good Novel, II: Advanced Techniques for Dramatic Storytelling |year=1931 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-312-10478-8 |url=http://us.macmillan.com/howtowriteadamngoodnovelii/JamesFrey |edition=1st |access-date=20 April 2013 |page=107}}</ref> They can be found in fiction and film, and range from children to mature characters.<ref>
An '''unreliable narrator''' is a narrator, whether in literature, film, or theatre, whose credibility has been seriously compromised.<ref name=frey/> The term was coined in 1961 by [[Wayne C. Booth]] in ''The Rhetoric of Fiction''.<ref>Booth, Wayne C: '' The Rhetoric of Fiction. 1961. Chicago: U of Chicago Press.'' 1995, p. 158-159. </ref> This [[narrative mode]] is one that can be developed by an author for a number of reasons, usually to deceive the reader or audience.<ref name=frey/> Most often unreliable narrators are [[first-person narrative|first-person narrators]], but sometimes [[third-person narrative|third-person narrators]] can also be unreliable.
{{cite book
|last=Nünning
|first=Vera
|date=2015
|title=Unreliable Narration and Trustworthiness: Intermedial and Interdisciplinary Perspectives
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jxpfCAAAQBAJ
|publisher=Gruyter
|page=1
|isbn=9783110408263
}}</ref> While unreliable narrators are almost by definition [[first-person narrative|first-person narrators]], arguments have been made for the existence of unreliable [[second-person narrative|second-]] and [[third-person narrative|third-person narrators]], especially within the context of film and television, but sometimes also in literature.<ref>[https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jlse.2017.46.issue-1/jls-2017-0005/jls-2017-0005.xml Unreliable Third Person Narration? The Case of Katherine Mansfield], ''Journal of Literary Semantics,'' Vol. 46, Issue 1, April 2017</ref>


The term “unreliable narrator” was coined by [[Wayne C. Booth]] in his 1961 book ''The Rhetoric of Fiction''.<ref name=Booth>{{cite book |last=Booth |first=Wayne C. |author-link=Wayne C. Booth |title=The Rhetoric of Fiction |url=https://archive.org/details/rhetoricoffictio00boot |url-access=registration |year=1961 |publisher=Univ. of Chicago Press |pages=[https://archive.org/details/rhetoricoffictio00boot/page/158 158–159]}}</ref> 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.”<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Phelan |first=James |date=May 2007 |title=Estranging Unreliability, Bonding Unreliability, and the Ethics of Lolita |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/nar.2007.0012 |journal=Narrative |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=222–238 |doi=10.1353/nar.2007.0012 |issn=1538-974X}}</ref>
The nature of the narrator is sometimes immediately clear. 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 story|frame]] in which the narrator appears as a character, with clues to his or her unreliability. A more dramatic use of the device delays the revelation until near the story's end. This [[twist ending]] forces readers to reconsider their [[point of view (literature)|point of view]] 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.


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 story|frame]] 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]] forces readers to reconsider their [[point of view (literature)|point of view]] 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.
An exception is an event that did not or could not happen, told within the fictionalized [[historical novel]]s, [[speculative fiction]], or clearly delineated [[dream sequence]]s. Narrators describing them are not being considered unreliable.


==Classification==
==Unreliable narrators in general==
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.<ref name="Riggan">{{cite book |last=Riggan |first=William |title=Pícaros, Madmen, Naīfs, and Clowns: The Unreliable First-person Narrator |year=1981 |publisher=Univ. of Oklahoma Press: Norman |isbn=978-0806117140}}</ref> Riggan provides the following definitions and examples to illustrate his classifications:


;The Pícaro: The first-person narrator of a [[picaresque novel]]; an [[antihero]] 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".{{r|Riggan|p=40-41}} 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.{{r|Riggan|p=42-43}}
=== Types of unreliable narrators ===
:Riggan gives the following examples of pícaro narrators: [[Apuleius]] in ''[[The Golden Ass]]'';{{r|Riggan|p=45}} Lázaro in ''[[Lazarillo de Tormes]]'';{{r|Riggan|p=48}} Guzmán in ''[[Guzmán de Alfarache]]'';{{r|Riggan|p=51}} Don Pablos in ''[[El Buscón]]'';{{r|Riggan|p=54}} Simplicius in [[Simplicius Simplicissimus]];{{r|Riggan|p=57}} Moll in ''[[Moll Flanders]]'';{{r|Riggan|p=61}} Augie March in ''[[The Adventures of Augie March]]'';{{r|Riggan|p=64}} Felix Krull in ''[[Confessions of Felix Krull]]''{{r|Riggan|p=70}}
;The Clown: A narrator in the tradition of the [[Fool (stock character)|fool]], the [[court jester]] and the [[sotie]], whose unreliable narration includes "irony, variations of meaning, ambiguities of definition, and possibilities for reversal and counter-reversal".{{r|Riggan|p=79-83}}
:Riggan gives the following examples of clown narrators: Folly in ''[[In Praise of Folly]]'' {{r|Riggan|p=82}}; Tristram Shandy in ''[[The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman]]'';{{r|Riggan|p=84}} Humbert Humbert in ''[[Lolita]]'';{{r|Riggan|p=89}} Oskar Matzerath in ''[[The Tin Drum]]''{{r|Riggan|p=98}}
;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".{{r|Riggan|p=110}}
:Riggan gives the following examples of madman narrators: Poprishchin in ''[[Diary of a Madman (Nikolai Gogol)|Diary of a Madman]]'';{{r|Riggan|p=111}} the narrator of ''[[Notes from Underground]]'';{{r|Riggan|p=118}} the first person narratives of [[Edgar Allan Poe]]'s short stories;{{r|Riggan|p=129}} the narrator of ''[[The Blind Owl]]''{{r|Riggan|p=135}}
;The Naïf: A narrator whose nature is revealed through their own narration and without their conscious awareness.{{r|Riggan|p=158}} 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."{{r|Riggan|p=169}}
:Riggan gives the following examples of naïf narrators: [[Huckleberry Finn]] in ''[[Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]'';{{r|Riggan|p=144}} [[Holden Caulfield]] in ''[[The Catcher in the Rye]]''{{r|Riggan|p=159}}


{{citation needed span|date=November 2023|It remains a matter of debate whether and how a non-first-person narrator can be unreliable, though the deliberate restriction of information to the audience can provide instances of unreliable ''narrative'', even if not necessarily of an unreliable ''narrator''. For example, in the three interweaving plays of [[Alan Ayckbourn]]'s ''[[The Norman Conquests]]'', each confines the action to one of three locations during the course of a weekend.}}
Attempts have been made at a classification of unreliable narrators<ref>Riggan, William: ''Pícaros, Madmen, Naïfs and Clowns: The Unreliable First-Person Narrator'' , University of Oklahoma Press: Norman (1981).</ref>
William Riggan analysed in his study discernable types of unreliable narrators, focusing on the first-person narrator as this is the most common kind of unreliable narration. Adapted from his findings is the following list:


Kathleen Wall argues that in ''[[The Remains of the Day (novel)|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.<ref>Wall, Kathleen (1994). "The Remains of the Day and Its Challenges to Theories of Unreliable Narration". The Journal of Narrative Technique. 24 (1): 18–42. ISSN 0022-2925. JSTOR 30225397. ProQuest [https://www.proquest.com/docview/1291917995%7C1291917995].</ref>
* The Pícaro: a narrator who is characterized by exaggeration and bragging, the first example probably being the soldier in [[Plautus]]’s comedy ''[[Miles Gloriosus (play)|Miles Gloriosus]]''. Examples in modern literature are ''[[Moll Flanders]]'', ''[[Simplicius Simplicissimus]]'' or ''[[Felix Krull]]''.
* The Madman: A narrator who has severe mental illness such as schizophrenia or paranoia. Examples include Poe’s Montresor in ''[[The Cask of Amontillado]]'', Barbara Covett in ''Notes on a Scandal'', or Patrick Bateman in ''American Psycho''.
* The Clown: A narrator who does not take narrations seriously and consciously plays with conventions, truth and the reader’s expectations. Examples of the type include [[The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman|Tristram Shandy]].
* The Naíf: A narrator whose perception is immature or limited through their point of view. Examples include [[Huckleberry Finn]] or [[Holden Caulfield]]
* The Liar: A mature narrator of sound cognition who deliberately misrepresents himself, often to obscure his unseemly or discreditable past conduct. John Dowell in Ford Madox Ford's ''[[The Good Soldier]]'' exemplifies this kind of narrator, as does Stevens in Kazuo Ishiguro's ''[[The Remains of the Day]]''.


==Definitions and theoretical approaches==
This typology is surely not exhaustive and cannot claim to cover the whole spectrum of unreliable narration in its entirety or even only the first-person narrator. Further research in this area has been called for.<ref>Nünning, Ansgar: "But Why Will You say That I Am mad?" On the Theory, History and Signals of Unreliable Narration in British Fiction, in ''Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik'' 22/1 (1997), pp 1 -105. </ref> A so-called "tough" (cynical) narrator and his self-talk - in which he is unreliably describing his own emotions - is characteristic of [[Noir fiction]] and [[Hardboiled|Hardboiled fiction]].
[[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."<ref name=Booth/> 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.


{{Blockquote| There are unreliable narrators (c.f. Booth). An unreliable narrator however, is not simply a narrator who 'does not tell the truth' – what fictional narrator ever tells the literal truth? Rather an unreliable narrator is one who tells lies, conceals information, misjudges with respect to the narrative audience – that is, one whose statements are untrue not by the standards of the real world or of the authorial audience but by the standards of his own narrative audience. ... In other words, all fictional narrators are false in that they are imitations. But some are imitations who tell the truth, some of people who lie.<ref name="Rabinowitz, Peter J. 1977">Rabinowitz, Peter J.: ''Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences.'' In: ''Critical Inquiry.'' Nr. 1, 1977, S. 121–141.</ref>}}
It also still remains a matter of debate whether and how a non first-person narrator can be unreliable.


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:
=== Definitions and theoretical approaches ===
[[Wayne C. Booth]] was the earliest who formulated a reader-centered approach to unreliable narration and distinguished between a reliable and [[unreliable narrator]] on the grounds of whether the narrator’s speech violates or conforms with general norms and values.
“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.”<ref>Booth, Wayne C: ''The Rhetoric of Fiction. 1961. Chicago: U of Chicago Press.'' 1995, S. 158–159.</ref>
Peter J. Rabinowitz criticized Booth’s definition for relying too much on the extradiegetic facts such as norms and ethics, which must necessarily be tainted by personal opinion. He consequently modified the approach to unreliable narration.
{{Quote| There are unreliable narrators (c.f. Booth). An unreliable narrator however, is not simply a narrator who ‘does not tell the truth’ – what fictional narrator ever tells the literal truth? Rather an unreliable narrator is one who tells lies, conceals information, misjudges with respect to the narrative audience – that is, one whose statements are untrue not by the standards of the real world or of the authorial audience but by the standards of his own narrative audience. […] In other words, all fictional narrators are false in that they are imitations. But some are imitations who tell the truth, some of people who lie.<ref>Rabinowitz, Peter J.: ''Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences.'' In: ''Critical Inquiry.'' Nr. 1, 1977, S. 121–141.</ref>}}
Rabinowitz’ 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 their text)
# “Narrative audience” (= imitation audience which also possesses particular knowledge)
# “Ideal narrative audience” (= uncritical audience who accepts what the author 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.”<ref>Rabinowitz,Peter J.: ''Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences.'' In: ''Critical Inquiry.'' Nr. 1, 1977, S. 121–141.</ref>
Similarly, Tamar Yacobi has proposed a model of five criteria (‘integrating mechanisms’) which determine if a narrator is unreliable.<ref>Living Handbook of Narratology[http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php/Unreliability Online]</ref>
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.
{{Quote|[…] to determine a narrator’s unreliability one need not rely merely on intuitive judgments. It is neither the reader’s intuitions nor the implied author’s norms and values that provide the clue to a narrator’s unreliability, but a broad range of definable signals. These include both textual data and the reader’s preexisting conceptual knowledge of the world. In sum whether a narrator is called unreliable or not does not depend on the distance between the norms and values of the narrator and those of the implied author but between the distance that separates the narrator’s view of the world from the reader’s world-model and standards of normality.<ref>Nünning, Ansgar: ''But why will you say that I am mad?: On the Theory, History, and Signals of Unreliable Narration in British Fiction.'' In: ''Arbeiten zu Anglistik und Amerikanistik.'' Nr. 22, 1997, S. 83–105.</ref>}}
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 (cf. [[#Signals of unreliable narration|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. {{Quote| […] Booth’s text-immanent model of narrator unreliability has been criticized by Ansgar Nünning for disregarding the reader’s role in the perception of reliability and for relying on the insufficiently defined concept of the implied author. Nünning updates Booth’s work with a cognitive theory of unreliability that rests on the reader’s values and her sense that a discrepancy exists between the narrator’s statements and perceptions and other information given by the text.}} 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.”<ref> Olson, Greta: ''Reconsidering Unreliability: Fallible and Untrustworthy Narrators.'' In: ''Narrative.'' Nr. 11, 2003, S. 93–109.</ref>
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.


# "Actual audience" (= the flesh-and-blood people who read the book)
=== Signals of unreliable narration ===
# "Authorial audience" (= hypothetical audience to whom the author addresses his text)
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.<ref>Nünning, Ansgar (ed.): ''Unreliable Narration'': Studien zur Theorie und Praxis unglaubwürdigen Erzählens in der englischsprachigen Erzählliteratur, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag: Trier (1998).</ref>
# "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."<ref name="Rabinowitz, Peter J. 1977">Rabinowitz, Peter J.: ''Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences.'' In: ''Critical Inquiry.'' Nr. 1, 1977, S. 121–141.</ref> Similarly, Tamar Yacobi has proposed a model of five criteria ('integrating mechanisms') which determine if a narrator is unreliable.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php/Unreliability |title=Living Handbook of Narratology |access-date=2016-12-01 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116110219/http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php/Unreliability |archive-date=16 January 2013 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> 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.
* Intratextual signs such as the narrator contradicting 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


{{Blockquote|... to determine a narrator's unreliability one need not rely merely on intuitive judgments. It is neither the reader's intuitions nor the implied author's norms and values that provide the clue to a narrator's unreliability, but a broad range of definable signals. These include both textual data and the reader's preexisting conceptual knowledge of the world. In sum whether a narrator is called unreliable or not does not depend on the distance between the norms and values of the narrator and those of the implied author but between the distance that separates the narrator's view of the world from the reader's world-model and standards of normality.<ref>Nünning, Ansgar: ''But why will you say that I am mad?: On the Theory, History, and Signals of Unreliable Narration in British Fiction.'' In: ''Arbeiten zu Anglistik und Amerikanistik.'' Nr. 22, 1997, S. 83–105.</ref>}}
==Examples of unreliable narrators==
<!-- Needs better sourcing! Please help by adding reliable sources -->


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|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.
===Historical occurrences===
One of the earliest uses of unreliability in literature is [[Plautus]]' comedy [[Miles Gloriosus]] (2–3 century BC), which features a soldier who constantly embellishes his accomplishments. The literary device of the "unreliable narrator" was used in several medieval fictional [[Arabic literature|Arabic tales]] of the ''[[One Thousand and One Nights]]'', also known as the ''Arabian Nights''.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Arabian Nights: A Companion|first=Robert|last=Irwin|publisher=[[I.B. Tauris|Tauris Parke Paperbacks]]|year=2003|isbn=1-86064-983-1|page=227|postscript=<!--none-->}}</ref> In one tale, "The Seven Viziers", a [[courtesan]] accuses a king's son of having assaulted her, when in reality she had failed to seduce him (inspired by the [[Bible|Biblical]]/[[Quran|Qur'anic]] story of [[Islamic view of Joseph|Yusuf]]/[[Joseph (Hebrew Bible)|Joseph]]). Seven [[vizier]]s attempt to save his life by narrating seven stories to prove the unreliability of the courtesan, and the courtesan responds by narrating a story to prove the unreliability of the viziers.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Story-telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights|first=David|last=Pinault|publisher=[[Brill Publishers]]|year=1992|isbn=90-04-09530-6|page=59|postscript=<!--none-->}}</ref> The unreliable narrator device is also used to generate [[suspense]] in another ''Arabian Nights'' tale, "[[The Three Apples]]", an early [[Crime fiction|murder mystery]]. At one point of the story, two men claim to be the murderer, one of whom is revealed to be lying. At another point in the story, in a [[Flashback (narrative)|flashback]] showing the reasons for the murder, it is revealed that an unreliable narrator convinced the man of his wife's [[infidelity]], thus leading to her murder.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights|first=David|last=Pinault|publisher=[[Brill Publishers]]|year=1992|isbn=90-04-09530-6|pages=93–7|postscript=<!--none-->}}</ref>


{{Blockquote| Booth's text-immanent model of narrator unreliability has been criticized by Ansgar Nünning for disregarding the reader's role in the perception of reliability and for relying on the insufficiently defined concept of the implied author. Nünning updates Booth's work with a cognitive theory of unreliability that rests on the reader's values and her sense that a discrepancy exists between the narrator's statements and perceptions and other information given by the text.}}
Another early example of unreliable narration is [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s ''[[The Canterbury Tales]]''. In "[[The Merchant's Prologue and Tale|The Merchant's Tale]]" for example, the narrator, being unhappy in his marriage, allows his [[Misogyny|misogynistic]] bias to slant much of his tale. In "[[The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale|The Wife of Bath]]", the Wife often makes inaccurate quotations and incorrectly remembers stories.
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."<ref>Olson, Greta: ''Reconsidering Unreliability: Fallible and Untrustworthy Narrators.'' In: ''Narrative.'' Nr. 11, 2003, S. 93–109.</ref> 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==
===Novels===
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.<ref>Nünning, Ansgar (ed.): ''Unreliable Narration'': Studien zur Theorie und Praxis unglaubwürdigen Erzählens in der englischsprachigen Erzählliteratur, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag: Trier (1998).</ref>
[[Wilkie Collins]]' early detective story ''[[The Moonstone]]'' (1868) is an early example of the unreliable narrator in [[crime fiction]]. The plot of the novel unfolds through several narratives by different characters, which contradict each other and reveal the biases of the narrators.
A controversial example of an unreliable narrator occurs in [[Agatha Christie]]'s novel ''[[The Murder of Roger Ackroyd]]'', where the narrator hides essential truths in the text (mainly through evasion, omission, and obfuscation) without ever overtly lying. Many readers at the time felt that the [[plot twist]] at the climax of the novel was nevertheless unfair. Christie used the concept again in her 1967 novel ''[[Endless Night]]''.


* Intratextual signs such as the narrator contradicting her or himself, having gaps in memory, or lying to other characters
Many novels are narrated by children, whose inexperience can impair their judgment and make them unreliable. In ''[[Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]'' (1884), [[Huckleberry Finn (character)|Huck]]'s innocence leads him to make overly charitable judgments about the characters in the novel.
* 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==
[[Ken Kesey]]'s two most famous novels feature unreliable narrators. [[Chief Bromden|"Chief" Bromden]] in ''[[One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)|One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest]]'' suffers from [[schizophrenia]], and his telling of the events often includes things such as people growing or shrinking, walls oozing with slime, or the orderlies kidnapping and "curing" [[Santa Claus]]. Narration in ''[[Sometimes a Great Notion (novel)|Sometimes a Great Notion]]'' switches between several of the main characters, whose bias tends to switch the reader's sympathies from one person to another, especially in the rivalry between main character Leland and Hank Stamper. Many of [[Susan Howatch]]'s novels similarly use this technique; each chapter is narrated by a different character, and only after reading chapters by each of the narrators does the reader realize each of the narrators has biases and "blind spots" that cause them to perceive shared experiences differently.
* [[Frame story]]

* [[Play within a play]]
Humbert Humbert, the main character and narrator of [[Vladimir Nabokov]]'s ''[[Lolita]]'', often tells the story in such a way as to justify his [[pedophilia|pedophilic]] fixation on young girls, in particular his sexual relationship with his 12-year-old stepdaughter. Similarly, the narrator of [[A. M. Homes]]' ''[[The End of Alice]]'' deliberately withholds the full story of the crime that put him in prison – the rape of a young girl, and subsequent murder of a man – until the end of the novel.
* [[Rashomon effect]], different narrators providing different accounts or stories of the same narrative events

* [[Tall tale]]
In some instances, unreliable narration can bring about the fantastic in works of fiction. In [[Kingsley Amis]]' ''[[The Green Man]]'', for example, the unreliability of the narrator Maurice Allington destabilizes the boundaries between reality and the fantastic. The same applies to [[Nigel Williams (author)|Nigel Williams's]] ''Witchcraft''.<ref>Martin Horstkotte. "Unreliable Narration and the Fantastic in Kingsley Amis's ''The Green Man'' and Nigel Williams's ''Witchcraft''". ''Extrapolation'' 48,1 (2007): 137–151.</ref> ''[[An Instance of the Fingerpost]]'' by [[Iain Pears]] also employs several points of view from narrators whose accounts are found to be unreliable and in conflict with each other.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.themysteryreader.com/pears-instance.html |title=THE MYSTERY READER reviews: An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears |publisher=Themysteryreader.com |accessdate=13 November 2011}}</ref>

Mike Engleby, the narrator of [[Sebastian Faulks]]' ''[[Engleby]]'', leads the reader to believe a version of events of his life that is shown to be increasingly at odds with reality.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/engleby-by-sebastian-faulks-449269.html|title=Engleby, by Sebastian Faulks. Sad lad, or mad lad?|last=Roberts|first=Michèle|date=18 May 2007|work=The Independent |location=London |accessdate=21 March 2009}}</ref>

Zeno Cosini, the narrator of [[Italo Svevo]]'s ''[[Zeno's Conscience]]'', is a typical example of unreliable narrator: in fact the novel is presented as a diary of Zeno himself, who unintentionally distorts the facts to justify his faults. His psychiatrist, who publishes the diary, claims in the introduction that it's a mix of truths and lies.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n01/james-wood/mixed-feelings |title=James Wood reviews ‘Zeno's Conscience’ by Italo Svevo, edited by William Weaver, ‘Memoir of Italo Svevo’ by Livia Veneziani Svevo, translated by Isabel Quigly and ‘Emilio's Carnival’ by Italo Svevo, translated by Beth Archer Brombert · LRB 3 January 2002 |publisher=Lrb.co.uk |accessdate=13 November 2011}}</ref>

===Films===
One of the earliest examples of the use of an unreliable narrator in film is the [[German expressionism|German expressionist]] film ''[[The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari]]'', from 1920.<ref>[http://reviews.media-culture.org.au/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3418 Film Studies: ''Don't Believe His Lies'', by Volker Ferenz]</ref> In this film, an epilogue to the main story is a [[twist ending]] revealing that Francis, through whose eyes we see the action, is a patient in an insane asylum, and the flashback which forms the majority of the film is simply his mental delusion.

The 1945 [[film noir]] ''[[Detour (1945 film)|Detour]]'' is told from the perspective of an unreliable protagonist who may be trying to justify his actions.<ref>[http://ferdyonfilms.com/2006/12/detour-1945.php Detour (1945) (Ferdy on Films, etc.)]{{dead link|date=November 2011}}</ref><ref>[http://www.cinematheque.bc.ca/archives/ffnoso98.html ]{{dead link|date=November 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.film-talk.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t14372.html |title=> Detour (1945) |publisher=Film Talk |accessdate=13 November 2011}}</ref>

In ''[[Possessed (1947 film)|Possessed]]'' (1947), [[Joan Crawford]] plays a woman who is taken to a psychiatric hospital in a state of shock. She gradually tells the story of how she came to be there to her doctors, which is related to the audience in flashbacks, some of which are later revealed to be hallucinations or distorted by paranoia.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.alifeatthemovies.com/movie-of-the-day/possessed/|title=Possessed movie review|date=20 June 2010|publisher=A Life At the Movies}}</ref>

In ''[[Rashomon (movie)|Rashomon]]'' (1950),a Japanese crime drama film directed by Akira Kurosawa, adapted from ''[[In a Grove]]'' (1921), uses multiple narrators to tell the story of the death of a [[samurai]]. Each of the witnesses describe the same basic events but differ wildly in the details, alternately claiming that the samurai died by accident, suicide, or murder. The term "[[Rashomon effect]]" is used to describe how different witnesses are able to produce differing, yet plausible, accounts of the same event, with equal sincerity.

The 1995 film ''[[The Usual Suspects]]'' reveals that the narrator had been deceiving another character, and hence the audience, by inventing stories and characters from whole cloth. The character is seen as a weak, humble, and quiet criminal but it is later found by the audience that he is the fabled crime boss Keyser Soze.<ref>{{Cite book | last=Schwartz | first=Ronald | title=Neo-Noir: The New Film Noir Style from Psycho to Collateral | year=2005 | publisher=Scarecrow Press | page=71 | isbn=978-0-8108-5676-9 | url=http://books.google.com/?id=VRCgRGFV0ycC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA71#v=onepage&q= | postscript=<!--none-->}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | last=Lehman | first=David | title=The Perfect Murder: A Study in Detection | edition=2nd | year=2000 | publisher=University of Michigan Press | pages=221–222 | isbn=978-0-472-08585-9 | url=http://books.google.com/?id=ZYC09Sc8-jQC&lpg=PA41&pg=PA221#v=onepage&q= | postscript=:}} "[H]e has improvised, spontaneously and with reckless abandon, a coherent, convincing, but false-bottomed narrative to beguile us and deceive his interrogator."</ref>

In the 1999 film ''[[Fight Club]]'', it is revealed that the narrator suffers from [[dissociative identity disorder]] and that some events were fabricated, which means only one of the two main protagonists actually exists, as the other is in the narrator's mind.<ref>http://www.poewar.com/john-hewitt%E2%80%99s-writing-tips-explaining-the-unreliable-narrator/</ref>

In the 2001 film ''[[A Beautiful Mind (film)|A Beautiful Mind]]'', it is eventually revealed that the narrator is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and many of the events he witnessed occurred only in his own mind.<ref>{{Cite document | last=Hansen | first= Per Krogh | title=Unreliable Narration in Cinema | publisher=University of Southern Denmark | url=http://cf.hum.uva.nl/narratology/a09_hansen.htm | postscript=<!-- Bot inserted parameter. Either remove it; or change its value to "." for the cite to end in a ".", as necessary. -->{{inconsistent citations}}}} "...[In] the second part of the film a large part of what we hitherto have considered part of the objective perspective (persons, actions, places) are exposed as being mental constructions and projections made by the protagonist...We have not only seen the events from his perspective, but we have seen what he thinks happens."</ref>

===Television===
In the [[Goodbye, Farewell and Amen|final episode]] of ''[[M*A*S*H (TV series)|M*A*S*H]]'', unreliable narration is used to create dramatic effect; [[Hawkeye Pierce]], now a patient of [[Sidney Freedman]] in an army mental hospital ward, recounts a traumatic memory of a recent event. In the recounting a key component is substituted with something more innocuous, leaving the viewer wondering why that incident resulted in his mental illness. Later, [[psychoanalysis]] with [[free association (psychology)|free-association]] reveals the true memory, which is much more disturbing and can be clearly seen as the cause.

In the episode "[[Three Stories (House)|Three Stories]]" of the show ''[[House (TV series)|House, M.D.]],'' the title character, Dr. Gregory House, gives a lecture recounting the stories of three patients who came in with leg pain. House constantly changes details and lies about the stories to make them more interesting and, as is ultimately revealed, to conceal that the identity of one of the patients was House himself.

''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' creator [[Craig Thomas (screenwriter)|Craig Thomas]] has explicitly said that the series narrator, [[Ted Mosby|"Future Ted"]], voiced by [[Bob Saget]], is an unreliable narrator. The narrator would sometimes come up with "what if?" conversations for other characters and almost revealing key plot points. Other times, he can't remember the names of some of the people he's met and calls them names such as "Blah Blah" or "Honey", citing "it's been over 25 years."<ref>{{cite web| title='How I Met Your Mother's' Craig Thomas on Ted & Barney's Breakup, Eriksen Babies and The Future of Robarn | url=http://blog.zap2it.com/korbitv/2008/05/how-i-met-your.html | publisher=Zap2it.com | accessdate=21 July 2008}}</ref>

In the episode "[http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/coupling/episodes/s3ep4.shtml Remember this]" (Season 3, episode 4) of the British sitcom ''[[Coupling (UK TV series)|Coupling]]'', the story of the first meeting of Patrick and Sally is recounted by several people, all of whom turn out to be unreliable narrators. Most jokes in this episode hinge on disparities amongst certain details of the story (and their psychological implications).

===Comics===
In Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's ''[[Batman: The Killing Joke]]'', [[Joker (comics)|the Joker]], who is the anti-hero of the story, reflects on the pitiful life that transformed him into a psychotic murderer. Although the Joker's version of the story is not implausible given overall Joker storyline in the [[Batman]] comics, the Joker admits at the end of ''The Killing Joke'' that he himself is uncertain if it is true.<ref>

David Leverenz, "The Last Real Man in America: From Natty Bumppo to Batman", ''The "American Literary History" Reader'', ed. Gordon Hutner (New York: [[Oxford University Press|Oxford UP]], 1995) 276. ISBN 0-19-509504-9.</ref>

Between his first appearance in 2008 and 2010, the human identity of [[Red Hulk]], a tactically intelligent version of the [[Hulk (comics)|Hulk]], was a source of mystery. In the 2010 book ''Fall of the Hulks: Gamma'', Red Hulk is depicted in flashback to have killed [[General Thunderbolt Ross]] at the behest of Bruce Banner (the Hulk's human identity), with whom he has formed an alliance.<ref>[[Loeb, Jeph]]. ''Fall of the Hulks: Gamma'' [[Marvel Comics]]. (February 2010)</ref> However, in the 2010 "[[World War Hulks]]" storyline that flashback is revealed to have been false when, during a battle with [[Red She-Hulk]], the Red Hulk reverts to human form, and is revealed to be General Thunderbolt Ross himself.<ref name=Hulkv2#22>Loeb, Jeph. ''Hulk'' vol. 2 No. 22 Marvel Comics. (July 2010)</ref>

===Video Games===
In the video game "Dragon Age II", the character of Varric is shown to be an unreliable narrator, often embellishing and exaggerating events to create more action for the player. This characteristic is commented upon by the other character used as a framing device, Cassandra.

==Notable works featuring unreliable narrators==
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* [[Martin Amis]]'s ''[[Time's Arrow (novel)|Time's Arrow]]''<ref>{{Cite news| url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/02/01/home/amis-arrow.html?_r=1&oref=slogin | work=The New York Times}}</ref>
* [[Augusto Roa Bastos]]'s ''[[I, the Supreme]]''<ref>{{González Echevarría 1980 217}}</ref>
* [[Emily Brontë]]'s ''[[Wuthering Heights]]''<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hafley |first1= James |year= 1958|title= ''The Villain in'' Wuthering Heights|page= 17|url= http://livingston.schoolwires.com/139620929192030233/lib/139620929192030233/_files/Ellen_Dean_as_villain.pdf|format=PDF|accessdate=3 June 2010}}</ref>
* [[Peter Carey (novelist)|Peter Carey]]'s ''[[Illywhacker]]''<ref>{{cite news| url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_reviews/article6995323.ece |location=London |work=The Times | title=Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey | date=23 January 2010 | first=Anushka | last=Asthana}}</ref>
* [[Angela Carter]]'s ''[[Wise Children]]''<ref>{{Cite news| url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE3D91730F93AA25752C0A964958260| work=The New York Times | title=Comedy Is Tragedy That Happens to Other People | date=19 January 1992}}</ref>
* [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s ''[[The Canterbury Tales]]''
* [[Wilkie Collins]]'s ''[[The Moonstone]]''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-97074176.html |title=Historicizing unreliable narration: unreliability and cultural |publisher=Encyclopedia.com |accessdate=13 November 2011}}</ref>
* The works of [[Bret Easton Ellis]], most prominently ''[[American Psycho]]''<ref name="ampsycho">Sarah Webster. When Writer Becomes Celebrity. ''The Oxonian Review of Books'', Vol. 5, No. 2 (spring 2006) [http://www.oxonianreview.org/issues/5-2/5-2webster.html]</ref>
*[[William Faulkner]]'s ''[[The Sound and the Fury]]''<ref name=frey>"How to Write a Damn Good Novel, II", by James N. Frey (1994) ISBN 0-312-10478-2, [http://books.google.com/books?id=pA1h1ti1tzEC&pg=PA107&dq=%22unreliable+narrator%22 p. 107]</ref>
* [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]]'s ''[[The Great Gatsby]]''<ref name="gatsby">Thomas E. Boyle. Unreliable Narration in "The Great Gatsby". The Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, Vol. 23, No. 1 (March 1969), pp. 21–26 [http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1346578]</ref>
* [[Ford Madox Ford]]'s ''[[The Good Soldier]]''<ref>Womack, Kevin and William Baker, eds. ''The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion''. Broadview Press, 2003. [http://books.google.com/books?id=ISGzVIjrHmIC&pg=PA3&dq=ford+madox+ford+good+soldier+unreliable+narrator&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=5]</ref>
* [[Günter Grass]]'s ''[[The Tin Drum]]''
* [[Kazuo Ishiguro]]'s ''[[When We Were Orphans]]''<ref name="Ishiguro">Mudge, Alden. "Ishiguro takes a literary approach to the detective novel." [http://www.bookpage.com/0009bp/kazuo_ishiguro.html]</ref>
* [[Henry James]]'s ''[[The Turn of the Screw]]''<ref>Helal, Kathleen, ed. ''The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Works''. Enriched Classics. Simon and Schuster, 2007. [http://books.google.com/books?id=rb-7OYNkItUC&pg=PA455&lpg=PA455&dq=the+turn+of+the+screw+unreliable&source=bl&ots=tU39iFN6C5&sig=1-7VHB3wsRtpbcN_aepdXSgvO1w&hl=en&ei=WEJTSuT9CdK_twfBqeWrCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4]</ref>
* [[James Lasdun]]'s ''[[The Horned Man]]''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.darkecho.com/darkecho/reviews/horned.html |title=DarkEcho Review: The Horned Man by James Lasdun |publisher=Darkecho.com |date=3 May 2003 |accessdate=13 November 2011}}</ref>
* [[Anita Loos]]'s ''[[Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (novel)|Gentlemen Prefer Blondes]]''<ref>{{Cite document|title=Madcaps, Screwballs, and Con Women: The Female Trickster in American Culture|first=Lori|last=Landay|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|year=1998|page=200|postscript=<!--none-->}}[http://books.google.com.au/books?id=n5BpcSboBEEC&printsec=frontcover#PPA200,M1]</ref>
* [[Vladimir Nabokov]]'s ''[[Pale Fire]]''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~wcd/palenarr.htm |title=Dowling on Pale Fire |publisher=Rci.rutgers.edu |accessdate=13 November 2011}}</ref>
* [[Mordecai Richler]]'s ''[[Barney's Version (novel)|Barney's Version]]''<ref>''[[The New York Times]]'': [http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/12/21/reviews/971221.21shapirt.html "The Way He Was – or Was He?"]</ref><ref>''[[Newsday]]'': [http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/movies/barney-s-version-of-a-colorful-life-1.2674183 "'Barney's Version' of a Colorful Life"]</ref><ref>''[[The Globe and Mail]]'': [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/movies/barneys-version-barney-as-an-everymensch/article1848130/ "Barney's Version: Barney as an Everymensch"]</ref>
* [[J. D. Salinger]]'s '' [[The Catcher in the Rye]]''<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/17/henry-sutton-top-10-unreliable-narrators |title=Henry Sutton, Top 10 Unreliable Narrators |accessdate=15 April 2012 |work=The Guardian |date=17 February 2010}}</ref>
* The works of [[Gene Wolfe]], most prominently ''[[The Book of the New Sun]]'' and ''[[The Fifth Head of Cerberus]]''<ref name="PersonInterview">{{cite web|url=http://home.roadrunner.com/~lperson1/wolfe.html |title=Interview with Gene Wolfe Conducted by Lawrence Person |publisher=Home.roadrunner.com |accessdate=13 November 2011}}</ref>
* [[Salman Rushdie]]'s ''[[Midnight's Children]]''<ref>{{cite web|url= http://salmanrushdie.livejournal.com/2230.html|title=Salman Rushdie, 'Errata' or Unreliable Narration in Midnight's Children}}</ref>
* [[William Thackeray]]'s ''[[The Luck of Barry Lyndon]]''
* [[Robert Graves]]'s ''[[I, Claudius]]''


Films with an unreliable point-of-view (or points-of-view):
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* ''[[Amarcord]]'' directed by [[Federico Fellini]]<ref>Tom Dawson, [http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2004/08/24/amarcord_2004_review.shtml], reviewing ''Amracord'' on BBC films</ref>
* ''[[Big Fish]]'' directed by [[Tim Burton]]<ref>Lance Goldenberg, [http://tampa.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A3527 "There's Something Fishy About Father"], ''Creative Loafing Tampa'', 8 January 2004.</ref>
* ''[[The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari]]'' directed by [[Robert Wiene]]<ref>Ferenz, Volker, "Fight Clubs, American Psychos and Mementos," ''New Review of Film and Television Studies'', Vol. 3, No. 2 (1 November 2005), pp. 133–159, ([http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/link.asp?id=j0496042631634l1 link]. Retrieved 5 March 2007, reg. required).</ref>
* ''[[Fight Club]]'' directed by [[David Fincher]]<ref name=church>Church, David, "[http://www.offscreen.com/biblio/phile/essays/fight_club/ Remaining Men Together: Fight Club and the (Un)pleasures of Unreliable Narration]", ''Offscreen'', Vol. 10, No. 5 (31 May 2006). Retrieved 14 April 2009.</ref>
* ''[[Hero (2002 film)|Hero]]'' (2002) directed by [[Zhang Yimou]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.montrealfilmjournal.com/review.asp?R=R0000709 |title='&#39;Hero'&#39; review in the '&#39;Montreal Film Journal'&#39; |publisher=Montrealfilmjournal.com |date=26 March 2003 |accessdate=13 November 2011}}</ref>
* ''[[Memento (film)|Memento]]'' directed by [[Christopher Nolan]]<ref>[http://www.reel.com/movie.asp?MID=131667&buy=closed&PID=10099964&Tab=reviews&CID=18 ]{{dead link|date=November 2011}}</ref>
* ''[[Rashomon (film)|Rashomon]]'' directed by [[Akira Kurosawa]]<ref>[http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article.jsp?cid=136021&mainArticleId=160926] ''Rashomon'' article on Turner Classic Movies</ref>


==References==
==References==
===Footnotes===
{{Reflist|30em}}
{{Reflist|30em}}


===Textbook===
==Further reading==
* {{cite book |last=Heiler |first=Lars |title=Taboo and Transgression in British Literature from the Renaissance to the Present |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CUvFAAAAQBAJ |editor=Stefan Horlacher |editor2=Stefan Glomb |editor3=Lars Heiler |display-editors=0 |date=2010 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=New York |contribution=Against Censorship: Literature, Transgression, and Taboo from a Diachronic Perspective |pages=49–74 |contribution-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CUvFAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA49 |isbn=9780230105997 }}
Smith, M. W. (1991). ''Understanding Unreliable Narrators''. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
* Shen, Dan: "[https://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/node/66.html 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==
Shan, Den: “Unreliability”, in Peter Hühn (ed.): The Living Handbook of Narratology, Hamburg: Hamburg University Press. ([http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php/Unreliability Online]. Retrieved 11 May 2012)
{{Wiktionary|unreliable narrator}}
*{{Commons category-inline|Fiction with unreliable narrators}}
*[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/17/henry-sutton-top-10-unreliable-narrators Henry Sutton's top 10 unreliable narrators]


{{Narrative modes|state=collapsed}}
===External links===
*[http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/17/henry-sutton-top-10-unreliable-narrators Henry Sutton's top 10 unreliable narrators]

{{Narrative modes}}


[[Category:Fiction with unreliable narrators| ]]
[[Category:Film theory]]
[[Category:Film theory]]
[[Category:Fiction with unreliable narrators| ]]
[[Category:Style (fiction)]]
[[Category:Style (fiction)]]
[[Category:Point of view]]
[[Category:Point of view]]
[[Category:Narrative techniques]]

[[Category:1960s neologisms]]
[[de:Unzuverlässiges Erzählen]]
[[id:Pengisah lancung]]
[[nl:Onbetrouwbare verteller]]
[[ja:信頼できない語り手]]
[[pt:Narrador não confiável]]
[[simple:Unreliable narrator]]
[[th:ผู้บรรยายเรื่องผู้ไม่น่าเชื่อถือ]]
[[tr:Güvenilmez anlatıcı]]

Latest revision as of 15:02, 24 December 2024

Illustration by Gustave Doré of Baron Munchausen's tale of being swallowed by a whale. Tall tales, such as those of the Baron, often feature unreliable narrators.

In literature, film, and other such arts, an unreliable narrator is a narrator who cannot be trusted, one whose credibility is compromised.[1] They can be found in fiction and film, and range from children to mature characters.[2] 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.[3]

The term “unreliable narrator” was coined by Wayne C. Booth in his 1961 book The Rhetoric of Fiction.[4] 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.”[5]

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 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 forces readers to reconsider their point of view 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

[edit]

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.[6] Riggan provides the following definitions and examples to illustrate his classifications:

The Pícaro
The first-person narrator of a picaresque novel; an antihero 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".[6]: 40-41  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.[6]: 42-43 
Riggan gives the following examples of pícaro narrators: Apuleius in The Golden Ass;[6]: 45  Lázaro in Lazarillo de Tormes;[6]: 48  Guzmán in Guzmán de Alfarache;[6]: 51  Don Pablos in El Buscón;[6]: 54  Simplicius in Simplicius Simplicissimus;[6]: 57  Moll in Moll Flanders;[6]: 61  Augie March in The Adventures of Augie March;[6]: 64  Felix Krull in Confessions of Felix Krull[6]: 70 
The Clown
A narrator in the tradition of the fool, the court jester and the sotie, whose unreliable narration includes "irony, variations of meaning, ambiguities of definition, and possibilities for reversal and counter-reversal".[6]: 79-83 
Riggan gives the following examples of clown narrators: Folly in In Praise of Folly [6]: 82 ; Tristram Shandy in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman;[6]: 84  Humbert Humbert in Lolita;[6]: 89  Oskar Matzerath in The Tin Drum[6]: 98 
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".[6]: 110 
Riggan gives the following examples of madman narrators: Poprishchin in Diary of a Madman;[6]: 111  the narrator of Notes from Underground;[6]: 118  the first person narratives of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories;[6]: 129  the narrator of The Blind Owl[6]: 135 
The Naïf
A narrator whose nature is revealed through their own narration and without their conscious awareness.[6]: 158  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."[6]: 169 
Riggan gives the following examples of naïf narrators: Huckleberry Finn in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn;[6]: 144  Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye[6]: 159 

It remains a matter of debate whether and how a non-first-person narrator can be unreliable, though the deliberate restriction of information to the audience can provide instances of unreliable narrative, even if not necessarily of an unreliable narrator. For example, in the three interweaving plays of Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests, each confines the action to one of three locations during the course of a weekend.[citation needed]

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.[7]

Definitions and theoretical approaches

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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."[4] 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.

There are unreliable narrators (c.f. Booth). An unreliable narrator however, is not simply a narrator who 'does not tell the truth' – what fictional narrator ever tells the literal truth? Rather an unreliable narrator is one who tells lies, conceals information, misjudges with respect to the narrative audience – that is, one whose statements are untrue not by the standards of the real world or of the authorial audience but by the standards of his own narrative audience. ... In other words, all fictional narrators are false in that they are imitations. But some are imitations who tell the truth, some of people who lie.[8]

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:

  1. "Actual audience" (= the flesh-and-blood people who read the book)
  2. "Authorial audience" (= hypothetical audience to whom the author addresses his text)
  3. "Narrative audience" (= imitation audience which also possesses particular knowledge)
  4. "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."[8] Similarly, Tamar Yacobi has proposed a model of five criteria ('integrating mechanisms') which determine if a narrator is unreliable.[9] 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.

... to determine a narrator's unreliability one need not rely merely on intuitive judgments. It is neither the reader's intuitions nor the implied author's norms and values that provide the clue to a narrator's unreliability, but a broad range of definable signals. These include both textual data and the reader's preexisting conceptual knowledge of the world. In sum whether a narrator is called unreliable or not does not depend on the distance between the norms and values of the narrator and those of the implied author but between the distance that separates the narrator's view of the world from the reader's world-model and standards of normality.[10]

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.

Booth's text-immanent model of narrator unreliability has been criticized by Ansgar Nünning for disregarding the reader's role in the perception of reliability and for relying on the insufficiently defined concept of the implied author. Nünning updates Booth's work with a cognitive theory of unreliability that rests on the reader's values and her sense that a discrepancy exists between the narrator's statements and perceptions and other information given by the text.

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."[11] 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

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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.[12]

  • 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

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References

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  1. ^ Frey, James N. (1931). How to Write a Damn Good Novel, II: Advanced Techniques for Dramatic Storytelling (1st ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-312-10478-8. Retrieved 20 April 2013.
  2. ^ Nünning, Vera (2015). Unreliable Narration and Trustworthiness: Intermedial and Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Gruyter. p. 1. ISBN 9783110408263.
  3. ^ Unreliable Third Person Narration? The Case of Katherine Mansfield, Journal of Literary Semantics, Vol. 46, Issue 1, April 2017
  4. ^ a b Booth, Wayne C. (1961). The Rhetoric of Fiction. Univ. of Chicago Press. pp. 158–159.
  5. ^ Phelan, James (May 2007). "Estranging Unreliability, Bonding Unreliability, and the Ethics of Lolita". Narrative. 15 (2): 222–238. doi:10.1353/nar.2007.0012. ISSN 1538-974X.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Riggan, William (1981). Pícaros, Madmen, Naīfs, and Clowns: The Unreliable First-person Narrator. Univ. of Oklahoma Press: Norman. ISBN 978-0806117140.
  7. ^ Wall, Kathleen (1994). "The Remains of the Day and Its Challenges to Theories of Unreliable Narration". The Journal of Narrative Technique. 24 (1): 18–42. ISSN 0022-2925. JSTOR 30225397. ProQuest [1].
  8. ^ a b Rabinowitz, Peter J.: Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences. In: Critical Inquiry. Nr. 1, 1977, S. 121–141.
  9. ^ "Living Handbook of Narratology". Archived from the original on 16 January 2013. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  10. ^ Nünning, Ansgar: But why will you say that I am mad?: On the Theory, History, and Signals of Unreliable Narration in British Fiction. In: Arbeiten zu Anglistik und Amerikanistik. Nr. 22, 1997, S. 83–105.
  11. ^ Olson, Greta: Reconsidering Unreliability: Fallible and Untrustworthy Narrators. In: Narrative. Nr. 11, 2003, S. 93–109.
  12. ^ Nünning, Ansgar (ed.): Unreliable Narration: Studien zur Theorie und Praxis unglaubwürdigen Erzählens in der englischsprachigen Erzählliteratur, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag: Trier (1998).

Further reading

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Look up unreliable narrator in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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