Unreliable narrator

An unreliable narrator tells a story whose account is compromised by limited knowledge, bias, deception, or instability, creating a gap between narration and implied truth.

Narrative framing: The arrangement of a story’s narration, including who tells it and how it is presented. Frames can expose distance between a narrator’s account and events outside it.
First-person narrative: A narrative told by a character using first-person pronouns. The narrator’s personal access and interests shape the account directly.
The Tell-Tale Heart: An 1843 short story by Edgar Allan Poe, narrated by a speaker who insists on sanity after murder. The narrator’s insistence on sanity clashes with the account’s escalating signs of disturbance.
Limited omniscience: A third-person narrative mode restricted to one character’s knowledge or inner life. Limited access restricts information but does not by itself imply a narrator’s distortion.
Narrative perspective: The position and scope from which a narrative presents events, thoughts, and information. A narrator’s access to information determines what the account can reliably establish.
Third-person narrative: A narrative told by a voice outside the story using third-person pronouns. Its narrator may have broader knowledge than a character-narrator, though reliability still varies.
The Turn of the Screw: A novella by Henry James in which a governess recounts events involving two children and apparent ghosts. The governess’s testimony leaves the supernatural events open to competing interpretations.
Untrustworthy narrator: A narrator whose statements cannot be accepted at face value. This near-synonym emphasizes credibility, while unreliability also includes limits and interpretive gaps.
Dramatic irony: A contrast between what a character believes and what an audience knows to be true. Readers may recognize errors or motives that the narrator cannot see or admits to conceal.
Focalization: The restriction of narrative information to a particular character’s perceptions or knowledge. Restricted focalization can limit information without making the narrator deceptive.

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