American Literature / Unit 2 AML 0103 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Unreliable Narrator
Captions available
The idea
An unreliable narrator reports events the reader comes to doubt, whether from madness, youth, self-interest or self-deception. The signal is a gap between what the narrator says and what the details show. Poe's murderers are the American type, insisting on their sanity while describing their crime.
In practice
The story the details tell against the teller.
Where people slip
Unreliability is shown, never announced.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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