Talk:Unreliable narrator

Use in video games.

Should be a list of video games that have used this technique. Indigo prophecy, and Spec Ops: The Line, both come to mind. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.247.138.52 (talk) 04:46, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, I would also mention Portal and The Stanley Parable. --Babomancer (talk) 17:15, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

This is a very good idea, especially since in some video games you're actually playing the unreliable character yourself (unlike The Stanley Parable and Portal where there are actual "narrators" that are unreliable), like Braid, BioShock and Heavy Rain. --Spug (talk) 19:01, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Under Wikipedia policy you will need independent sources (other than yourself) that show that the narrator is, in fact, unreliable. Also, the article lists only the most important cases. It doesn't list all cases. Maybe you should start a list "List of unreliable narrators". Xxanthippe (talk) 21:39, 31 March 2014 (UTC).

In Call of Juarez: Gunslinger the unreliable narrator is openly challenged by his audience and when he concedes points are not actually true the level changes right in front of you to reflect the changed story. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.228.221.7 (talk) 16:05, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Missing the most familiar unreliable narrator

R2D2. 71.23.111.214 (talk) 23:00, 9 October 2013 (UTC)Jj

Abba's "Money, Money, Money" and the Unreliable Narrator

If you're interested, Abba's "Money, Money, Money" is still an example of unreliable narrator, as confirmed to me by Carl Magnus Palm. Suit yourselves. Peace. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.124.41.60 (talk) 22:51, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Edit by Xxanthippe: why revert a correction?

The user changed "Naïf" to "Naíf" (incorrect) and "Rashômon" to "Rashomon" (unnecessarily simplified). When corrected, the reason s/he gave for reverting my edit was: "Thanks, but we would like a policy for this". I don't understand. Do you want a policy for not correcting mistakes? For introducing typos? El Bit Justiciero (talk) 02:53, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

To six edit editor: this should be simple- what policy are you following in making your edit? Xxanthippe (talk) 03:31, 12 February 2014 (UTC).

Answering a question with another question is no answer. Can you explain why did you change the correct form "Naïf" to the incorrect form "Naíf"? This is not a power struggle, it's a matter of fact. (Also, I have made many edits with an older handle, but that's immaterial.) El Bit Justiciero (talk) 07:43, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Fight Club (the book) not an example but movie is?

Title should be self explanatory, why isn't the novel listed as an example? Is it just not considered significant or recognizable next to the movie? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.116.8.168 (talk) 07:54, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Unreliable narration?

Does anybody agree that much of the sections « Definitions and theoretical approaches » and « Signals of unreliable narration » is in fact unreliable narration? --Clifford Mill (talk) 13:58, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Scout, in To Kill A Mockingbird. She is telling it as an "adult", but remembering an idealized version of her father, etc. This was evident even before the controversial "sequel" spelled it out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.85.194.13 (talk) 21:34, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

A wider view?

The German page has more on the theory and more examples, while the Dutch page has further examples. --Clifford Mill (talk) 13:59, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Shutter Island as an example?

The main character from the book and the movie Shutter Island is a perfect example of an unreliable narrator. I suggest to add it to the list of examples. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.170.36.77 (talk) 10:47, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

The Good Soldier example

I don't think John Dowell is a good example of anything. It isn't clear in the book whether he's justifying himself, or just stupid, or just an accidental reflection of author Ford Madox Ford's alleged real-life difficulties distinguishing fantasy from reality.Philgoetz (talk) 23:08, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's The Key suggestion

The Key has two unreliable narrators. The book is written as a husband and wife's diary entries, written assuming that the other will read them. Arguably, the narrators are not unreliable but the narration itself is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cruzlaw (talk • contribs) 21:08, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Proposed Example of Unreliable Narrator: Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"

This is one of the best examples. In the first sentence the narrator reveals, yet denies, his psychosis and consistently treats his hallucinations as completely normal experiences which he is amazed are not shared by the listener.65.49.186.5 (talk) 23:24, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Maybe, but you will have to find a source. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:21, 3 June 2015 (UTC).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tell-Tale_Heart

Quote from above source: ""The Tell-Tale Heart" uses an unreliable narrator."65.49.186.5 (talk) 04:58, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia cannot be used as a source for itself. Sources need to be independent, see WP:RS. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:13, 3 June 2015 (UTC).

I didn't come here to debate. I made a reasonable suggestion. If you choose to implement it, fine. This has degraded into an unnecessary argument in which I will no longer take part.65.49.186.5 (talk) 19:34, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Notable works featuring unreliable narrators in TV shows

I came to this page discussing USA Network's TV show Mr. Robot, featuring an unreliable narrator as the main character of the show. I suggest to add it to the to-be-created list, do any of you have other examples in mind ? I am also thinking about Homeland (TV series) but I have watched it too long ago to be certain of it. Any other ideas/approvals ? Thanks ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by D4Nf6c4e6Nf3b6 (talk • contribs) 13:02, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

To be suitable for inclusion here material has to be a) sourced and b) notable. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:22, 30 August 2015 (UTC).

Mr. Robot was added to the article last year-Many refs to Unreliable Narrator available, just added one from Slate that had major focus on unreliable narrator aspect.TeeVeeed (talk) 14:02, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Fallen (film)

The movie Fallen with Denzel Washington and John Goodman should be included as another good example of an unreliable narrator. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.55.181.5 (talk) 20:26, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

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Two examples added, one to books and one to film

The unreliable narrator in the second half of Don Quixote is a major issue of literary discussion. I’m surprised it hasn’t been added before, but better late than never.

Stage Fright, a minor film of Alfred Hitchcock’s, is of note for only two reasons. It’s the single picture he did with Marlene Dietrich (irrelevant), and it includes a flashback scene that, as it turns out, never happened (relevant). Exactly who is the unreliable narrator is a good question. I’d go with Alfred Hitchcock.

By the way, I completely disagree with the inclusion of Citizen Kane in the list of examples. Many different characters, much older now, get to share their recollections of Kane, but their age doesn’t make them unreliable. I don’t believe that any of these characters’ accounts are contradictory. However, there is a notorious “bug” in the picture: Kane died alone, so no one could have possibly known that his last word was “Rosebud.” So you could make the case, which I don’t particularly want to do, that the entire film is an unreliable narrator.HKBrooklyn (talk) 19:03, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Nabokov, Dostoyevsky, & Jail Trope

I was very surprised to see no mention of Humbert Humbert from Lolita (perhaps the most famous unreliable narrator of 20^th century literature) or Charles Kinbote from Pale Fire both by Nabokov. Also Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin from The Double by Dostoyevsky. All three of these fall into the Madman classification: Humbert admits early in Lolita that he was a patient in mental institutions as does the psychologist of the introduction, Kinbote is revealed late in Pale Fire to have escaped from a mental institution, and Golyadkin visits his doctor for medication early in The Double.

Humbert (and possibly also Howard W. Campbell, Jr. from Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut) also notably represents a specific sub-type of the Liar classification: they are revealed very early in their stories to be writing from jail, appealing for forgiveness/exoneration.

Humbert also belongs in the Pícaro classification. This complex character clearly is an unreliable narrator of at least three classifications in the books, although the movies make this far less clear (if at all). There is no mention of mental institutions in either the Kubrick or Lyne versions of the movie, and very few passing indicates indications of Humbert writing to a jury in the Lyne version. 71.57.191.69 (talk) 15:52, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

"Unreliable narrators" in films that don't actually have narrators

I added a line in the Unreliable narrator' section of the Plot twist article pointing out that many films labelled as having "unreliable narrators" (including several of the ones listed in that very section) are films which don't actually have narrators, in the filmic or literary sense, i.e. there is no voiceover or repeated title cards wherein a character or unseen storyteller offers us information which is later determined to be reliable or not. Many people call those films examples of "unreliable narrators" if you consider a protagonist to be a "narrator" simply by virtue of the film's narrative being seen through their subjective and, in such cases, incorrect point of view. Others disagree that "narrator" is the right word for such a character or storytelling device. But whether or not we want to get into the debate, I think this page should at least mention the fact that the term unreliable narrator is used VERY often for films (and plays, TV shows, etc.) with no "narrator" whatsoever, to at least point out that some people use the term this way, to alleviate any confusion. For an academic discussion of this point, in my edit on the Plot twist article I cited Emar Maier's "Unreliability and Point of View in Filmic Narration" from Epistemology & Philosophy of Science, Volume 59, Issue 2 (2022), which I think is as good a starting place as any if we want to cite academic sources on this question, or at least phenomenon, of narrator-less unreliable narrator films. --VolatileChemical (talk) 08:51, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Conscious/unconscious

The article could do with stating clearly somewhere that unreliable narration can be either conscious (i.e. intentionally misleading) or unconscious (unintentionally misleading). A classic example of the former is Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), which for much of the text comes across as a fairly standard murder mystery, but in which it eventually transpires that the murder was in fact committed by the narrator. An example of the latter might be Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine (2017), in which it turns out at the end of the book that the narrator has been in denial about her problems and has therefore severely misrepresented many aspects of her life. I don't have a secondary source that says this, but if anyone does it should certainly go in. GrindtXX (talk) 16:10, 22 November 2023 (UTC)