An unreliable narrator is an untrustworthy storyteller, most often used in narratives with a first-person point of view.
The unreliable narrator is either deliberately deceptive or unintentionally misguided, forcing the reader to question their credibility as a storyteller.
Types of Unreliable Narrators
There several types of unreliable narrators:
- Naive narrator – This narrator is unreliable because of his or her lack of experience. These characters are sometimes children or very inexperienced adults.
- Outsider – This narrator may be new in town or of a different racial or socioeconomic background than the rest of the characters in the story.
- Picaro – A picaro is a narrator who likes to embellish or exaggerate a story. Sometimes these narrators make the best storytellers of all, but readers have to keep their tendency toward hyperbole in mind.
- Insane – A narrator who has lost touch with reality or is otherwise insane can tell a compelling story that may not be reflective of the truth.
- Liar – This type of narrator cheats intentionally. These are rare to encounter, but they tell a nuanced story as the reader must try to sort fact from fiction.
Let us understand unreliable narrators with the help of following examples. These are few classic unreliable narrators from best and known fictions.
Examples of Unreliable Narrators
- Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca. The narrator’s unreliability in this 1938 novel comes from her highly subjective retelling. When Mrs. de Winter talks about her predecessor, the first Mrs. de Winter, and the mystery surrounding her death, it is all speculation, with a touch of jealousy. The reason for her jaded perspective is finally exposed when the tragic truth comes to light.
- Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl. When Amy Dunne takes on the role of the narrator halfway through Gone Girl, it comes as somewhat of a surprise. Readers have spent the first half of the book thinking she is dead thanks to the novel’s first unreliable narrator, Amy’s husband Nick. With two unreliable narrators—Amy and her husband, Nick—Flynn doubles down on the novel’s conflict and dismantles the story’s moral compass.
- Pi Patel in The Life of Pi. The Life of Pi by Yann Martel also features an unreliable narrator. Stranded at sea, Pi Patel must divorce himself from reality in order to survive. As he tells the story of his voyage, he alters events in a way that allows him to process what has happened. In the end, the reader learns the true story and must reconcile the differences.
- A real life example: A classic example of an unreliable narrator who is a liar. The reader knows Alex is a sociopath, and he is narrating the story while drunk. In addition, he has misbeliefs of grandeur that are obviously not part of the reality shared by most people.
Ways to Create Unreliable Narrator
Now in order to incorporate an unreliable narrator in the story, let us work on the following tips:
- Keep the reader in dark. Readers are used to have more information than the characters. Try to change the scenario by withholding certain information from the readers and see how the story is framed eventually.
- Your narrator should be unreliable from the start. People are inherently unreliable when telling a story since their point of view is filtered through their experience and beliefs. Your narrator won’t suddenly become unreliable, so hint at any qualities that might compromise them and their story early on.
- Experiment with just a pinch of unreliability by giving the readers misinformation and unreliable moments to make them slightly flawed—and thus, more believable.
Let other characters be a sounding board. Picture a story with many narrators. Many views will reflect on single tragedy, resulting non alignment of stories. Every character version gets filtered through their own lens. While you don’t need many perspectives in story, hence use other characters to reflect inconsistencies in your narrator’s story.