English Literature / Unit 2 ENL 0126 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Unreliable Narrator
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The idea
An unreliable narrator is one whose account cannot be fully trusted because of ignorance, bias, self-deception or dishonesty. Unreliable narrators are almost always first-person narrators. The reader must read past what the narrator says to what the evidence shows, and exam questions often turn on that gap.
In practice
The teller's account against the evidence.
Where people slip
Unreliable need not mean lying.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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