Unreliable narrator

In literature and film, an unreliable narrator is a first-person narrator, the credibility of whose point of view is seriously compromised, possibly by psychological instability, or a powerful bias, or else simply by a lack of knowledge. One of the earliest known examples of unreliable narration is Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. In the Merchant's Tale, for instance, the narrator, being unhappy in his marriage, applies a misogynistic slant to much of his tale.

Related Topics:
First-person narrator - Point of view - Psychological instability - Bias - Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales - Misogynistic

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Many novels are narrated by children, whose inexperience makes them inherently unreliable. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, for example, Huck's inexperience leads him to make overly charitable judgments about the characters in the novel; in contrast, Holden Caulfield, in The Catcher in the Rye, tends to assume the worst.

Related Topics:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Huck - Holden Caulfield - The Catcher in the Rye

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Many have suggested that all first-person narration, and indeed narration generally, is inescapably unreliable.

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