Recap
- A narrator’s reliability affects a narrative: what we believe happened and how we judge the characters.
- Reasons for unreliability: self-interest, bias, limited knowledge, emotional or mental state, naivety or age.
- Some narrators provide details that others do not or cannot; multiple narrators may contradict one another.
- Reliability is a matter of degree. A narrator can be sound on one matter and doubtful on another.
Signs of unreliability
| Sign | Example |
|---|---|
| Self-contradiction | “I never raise my voice”, and the windows shake |
| Over-insistence | Repeated claims of calm or honesty |
| Defensive address | “Why will you say that I am mad?” |
| Telling and showing differ | Calls himself generous and counts every coin |
| Contradiction by others | Another voice gives a different account |
| Gaps | Missing reasons, motives or key events |
Handling contradictory narrators
- List the points of conflict.
- For each narrator, ask what they can see or know.
- Ask what each wants or fears.
- Decide whether the text favours one, balances them or leaves the question open.
- Say what the contradiction reveals.
Examples (public domain)
- The Tell-Tale Heart (Edgar Allan Poe, 1843): “why will you say that I am mad?” and the insistence on calm.
- The Cask of Amontillado (Edgar Allan Poe, 1846): the “thousand injuries” are never described; the narrator’s closing excuse for his sick heart is the dampness of the catacombs.
Assumptions
- Evidence of unreliability must be specific: a phrase, a mismatch, a gap.
- A limited narrator may be honest; an unreliable one is distorted. The two can overlap.
- A contradiction between narrators is evidence, not an error.
Tone is not reliability
Tone is the attitude a narrator conveys. Reliability is how far the reader can trust the account. A defensive tone is a clue, but you need a second sign, such as a contradiction or a gap, before you conclude that a narrator is unreliable.
Mistakes to avoid
- Equating unreliable with lying.
- Choosing a “true” narrator without evidence.
- Using one detail to condemn the whole account.
- Forgetting that the narrator’s unreliability affects our view of other characters.
- Naming the device without saying what it reveals.
Quick self-check
1. A narrator says, “I was perfectly calm,” three times in one paragraph. What may this suggest?
2. A child narrator reports accurately what the adults say but does not understand it. Is she unreliable, limited or both?
3. Two narrators disagree about whether a door was locked. List three things to check.
4. What does an unreliable narrator allow a writer to do?
Answers.
- Over-insistence: the repetition may signal anxiety or a wish to persuade, which raises doubt.
- Mainly limited: she is honest but does not understand. Her account may still be unreliable on interpretation, and the reader infers what she cannot.
- What each can see; what each wants; what else in the text supports one account.
- Create irony, reveal a character through self-betrayal and make the reader an active interpreter.
Return to the Topic 7.4 study guide for worked examples, then try the practice questions.