Wayne C. Booth and the Implied Author
An unreliable narrator is not merely a character who tells lies; they are a narrative lens whose moral and factual interpretations diverge from the implied author's structural truth. When executed skillfully, this divergence creates dramatic irony that captivates sophisticated readers.
The 3 Types of Narrative Unreliability
- The Picaroon / Liar: Deliberately misleads for self-preservation or malicious intent.
- The Naïf: Lacks the perceptual maturity or cognitive framework to understand events (e.g., child narrators).
- The Self-Deceiver: Rationalizes psychological trauma or moral guilt through obsessive narrative distortion.
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