Editing Unreliable narrator (section)

{{short description|Narrator whose credibility is compromised}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2015}}
[[File:Gustave Doré - Baron von Münchhausen - 067.jpg|right|thumb|Illustration by [[Gustave Doré]] of [[Baron Munchausen]]'s tale of being swallowed by a whale. [[Tall tale]]s, such as those of the Baron, often feature unreliable narrators.]]

In [[literature]], [[film]], and other such [[arts]], an '''unreliable narrator''' is a [[narrator]] who cannot be trusted, one whose credibility is compromised.<ref name=frey>{{cite book |last=Frey |first=James N. |author-link=James N. Frey |title=How to Write a Damn Good Novel, II: Advanced Techniques for Dramatic Storytelling |year=1931 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-312-10478-8 |url=http://us.macmillan.com/howtowriteadamngoodnovelii/JamesFrey |edition=1st |access-date=20 April 2013 |page=107}}</ref> They can be found in a wide range from children to mature characters.<ref>
{{cite book
 |last=Nünning
 |first=Vera
 |date=2015
 |title=Unreliable Narration and Trustworthiness: Intermedial and Interdisciplinary Perspectives
 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jxpfCAAAQBAJ
 |publisher=Gruyter
 |page=1
 |isbn=9783110408263
}}</ref> While unreliable narrators are almost by definition [[first-person narrative|first-person narrators]], arguments have been made for the existence of unreliable [[second-person narrative|second-]] and [[third-person narrative|third-person narrators]], especially within the context of film and television, but sometimes also in literature.<ref>[https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jlse.2017.46.issue-1/jls-2017-0005/jls-2017-0005.xml Unreliable Third Person Narration? The Case of Katherine Mansfield], ''Journal of Literary Semantics,'' Vol. 46, Issue 1, April 2017</ref>

The term “unreliable narrator” was coined by [[Wayne C. Booth]] in his 1961 book ''The Rhetoric of Fiction''.<ref name=Booth>{{cite book |last=Booth |first=Wayne C. |author-link=Wayne C. Booth |title=The Rhetoric of Fiction |url=https://archive.org/details/rhetoricoffictio00boot |url-access=registration |year=1961 |publisher=Univ. of Chicago Press |pages=[https://archive.org/details/rhetoricoffictio00boot/page/158 158–159]}}</ref> James Phelan expands on Booth’s concept by offering the term “bonding unreliability” to describe situations in which the unreliable narration ultimately serves to approach the narrator to the work’s envisioned audience, creating a bonding communication between the [[implied author]] and this “authorial audience.”<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Phelan |first=James |date=May 2007 |title=Estranging Unreliability, Bonding Unreliability, and the Ethics of Lolita |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/nar.2007.0012 |journal=Narrative |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=222–238 |doi=10.1353/nar.2007.0012 |issn=1538-974X|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Sometimes the narrator's unreliability is made immediately evident. For instance, a story may open with the narrator making a plainly false or delusional claim or admitting to being severely mentally ill, or the story itself may have a [[frame story|frame]] in which the narrator appears as a character, with clues to the character's unreliability. A more dramatic use of the device delays the revelation until near the story's end. In some cases, the reader discovers that in the foregoing narrative, the narrator had concealed or greatly misrepresented vital pieces of information. Such a [[twist ending]] forces readers to reconsider their [[point of view (literature)|point of view]] and experience of the story. In some cases the narrator's unreliability is never fully revealed but only hinted at, leaving readers to wonder how much the narrator should be trusted and how the story should be interpreted.