What is an Unreliable Narrator Definition and 6 Real Examples

What is an Unreliable Narrator Definition and 6 Real Examples What is an Unreliable Narrator: Definition and Examples In literature, an unreliable narrator is a character who tells a story with a lack of credibility. There are different types of unreliable narrators (more on that later), and the presence of one can be revealed to readers in varying ways - sometimes immediately, sometimes gradually, and sometimes later in the story when a plot twist leaves us wondering if we’ve maybe been a little too trusting.While the term â€Å"unreliable narrator† was first coined by literary critic Wayne C. Booth in his 1961 book, The Rhetoric of Fiction, it’s a literary device that writers have been putting to good use for much longer than the past 80 years. For example, "The Tell-Tale Heart" published by Edgar Allan Poe in 1843 utilizes this storytelling tool, as does Wuthering Heights, published in 1847.But wait, is any narrator really reliable?This discussion can lead us down a proverbial rabbit hole. In a sense, no, there aren’t any 100% completely reliable narrators. The  "Rashomon Effect† tells us that our subjective perceptions prohibit us from ever having a totally clear memory of past events. If each person subjectively remembers something that happened, how do we know who is right? "Indeed, many writers have used the Rashomon Effect to tell stories from multiple first-person perspectives - leaving readers to determine whose record is most believable." (Check out As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner for an example).For the purpose of this article, however, we will refer to narrators who are purposefully unreliable for a specific narrative function. How to write an unreliable narrator that has us on our toes and reading between the lines. Literary function of an unreliable narratorFiction that makes us question our own perceptions can be powerful. An unreliable narrator can create a lot of grey areas and blur the lines of reality, allowing us to come to our own conclusions.Fallible storytellers can also create tension by keeping readers on their toes - wondering if there’s more under the surface, and reading between the lines to decipher what that is. Unreliable  narrators can make for intriguing, complex characters: depending on the narrator’s motivation for clouding the truth, readers may also feel more compelled to keep reading to figure out why the narrator is hiding things.Finally, all unreliable narrators are first-person: they live in the world of the story and will have an inherent bias or perhaps even an agenda. While you may find an unreliable narrator who's written in the second-person or third-person point of view, this is generally rare.PRO-TIP: If you'd like to see the different point of views in action, check out this post that has 50+ point of view examples.Types of unreliable narratorsJust like trying to classify every type of character would be an endless pursuit, so is trying to list every type of unreliable narrator. That said, we've divided these questionable raconteurs into three general types to better understand how they work as a literary device.1) Deliberately Unreliable: Narrators who are aware of their deceptionThis type of narrator is intentionally lying to the reader because, well, they can. They have your attention, the point of view is theirs, and they’ll choose what to do with it, regardless of any â€Å"responsibility† they might have to the reader. (The film adaptation of Room, image: Universal Pictures)Forrest Gump by Winston Groom Forrest is another example of a narrator who’s not deliberately unreliable in order to pull the wool over the readers’ eyes or to â€Å"save face.† From the outset, we are aware that Forrest doesn’t comprehend things like the â€Å"average† person does, and we’re aware that we might not be able to take everything he says at face value. This is confirmed when Forrest begins detailing his life, which is peppered with stories about major events from history that he was apparently intimately involved in. We can’t be certain that he’s not telling the truth, but it would be quite the life if he is. Six examples of unreliable narrators and how to write your own fallible storyteller. An unreliable narrator breaks the conventional relationship of trust between a reader and a storyteller. However, the key is that you don’t want to shatter that trust entirely, because you’re likely to lose the reader. Ensure your unreliable narrator has a clear purpose for being unreliable, employ just enough mist around the narrator’s accounts to put question marks in our minds, give us the underlying sense that there’s more to the story, and you’ll be able to foster a connection between the reader and narrator that has the pages of your book flipping.Who are some of your favorite unreliable narrators from literature? Have you ever tried writing one yourself? Leave any thoughts or questions in the comments below!