Unreliable narrator full#

You can read the full text of the story on Project Gutenberg and decide for yourself whether you believe the narrator or not.Įdgar Allan Poe made great use of the unreliable narrator trope, “The Tell-Tale Heart” being one of his prime examples. In this latter interpretation, the governess is an unreliable narrator, driven mad some say by her own sexual repression. While some still take the tale at face value as a simple ghost story, others claim that the governess is delusional, since no other characters at any point show clear evidence of being able to see the ghosts. The great debate surrounding this novella concerns whether there were really ever any ghosts or not. The story ends in a shocking and confusing manner, leaving the reader totally unsure of what just happened. The governess comes to believe that the children are interacting with and being corrupted by the ghosts, but when she confronts one of the specters in front of Flora and another servant, they both claim not to see it. The specters are of two deceased servants, one being the narrator’s predecessor as governess, whom the other servants gossip about circumspectly, potentially alluding to sexual misconduct. The governess soon begins to see strange specters around the house and becomes concerned for the safety of the children. This novella, published in 1898, features a governess who comes to the country home of a mysterious bachelor in order to care for his niece and nephew, Flora and Miles.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James is one of the most famous examples of the unreliable narrator trope. In the case of gothic fiction, it is most often this last reason that causes many narrators to be considered unreliable. The narrator may be deliberately lying or their words may be influenced by unconscious bias or delusions. Often used in horror or mystery, an unreliable narrator is a first-person narrator of a story whose words the reader is not meant to take at face value. This is one of my favorite gothic tropes. Pamela J Francis on African-American Writers of Gothic Literature.

JAY ROTHERMEL on Humorous Ghost Stories.

Spencer on Review of The Last Heir to Blackwood Library.

Review of The Sleepless-A Debut Sci-Fi Thriller.

Review of The Last Heir to Blackwood Library.

Unreliable narrator