A narrator is an entity within a story that tells the story to the reader. It is one of three entities responsible for story-telling of any kind. The others are the author and the reader (or audience). An author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created Brooklyn Book Festival crowd by David Shankbonejpg|thumb|An audience at the Brooklyn Book Festival in New York City. The author and the reader both inhabit the real world. It is the author's function to create the alternate world, people, and events within the story. It is the reader's function to understand and interpret the story. The narrator exists within the world of the story (and only there—although in non-fiction the narrator and the author can share the same persona, since the real world and the world of the story are the same) and presents it in a way the reader can comprehend.

A narrator tells the story from their point of view.

The concept of the unreliable narrator (as opposed to Author) became more important with the rise of the novel in the 19th Century. In literature film theatre and music an unreliable narrator (a term coined by Wayne C See also 18th century in literature, other events of the 19th century, 20th century in literature, List of years in literature. Until the late 1800s, literary criticism as an academic exercise dealt solely with poetry (including epic poems like the Iliad and Paradise Lost, and poetic drama like Shakespeare). Literary criticism is the study discussion evaluation and interpretation of Literature. An epic is a lengthy Narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation The Iliad ( Greek: Ἰλιάς (Ancient Ιλιάδα (Modern is together with the Odyssey, one of two ancient Paradise Lost is an Epic poem in Blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. William Shakespeare ( baptised Most poems did not have a narrator distinct from the author. But novels, with their immersive fictional worlds, created a problem, especially when the narrator's views differed significantly from that of the author. A novel (from Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle for "new" "news" or "short story

Types of narrator

A writer's choice of narrator is crucial for the way a work of fiction is perceived by the reader. Generally, a first-person narrator brings greater focus on the feelings, opinions, and perceptions of a particular character in a story, and on how the character views the world and the views of other characters. See also First person First-person narrative is a Narrative mode in which a Story is narrated by one character, who explicitly If the writer's intention is to get inside the world of a character, then it is a good choice, although a third-person limited-omniscient narrator is an alternative that doesn't require the writer to reveal all that a first-person character would know. By contrast, a third-person omniscient narrator gives a panoramic view of the world of the story, looking into many characters and into the broader background of a story. The third-person narrative is a Narrative mode applying the third person. A third-person omniscient narrator can tell feelings of every character. For stories in which the context and the views of many characters are important, a third-person narrator is a better choice. However, a third-person narrator does not need to be an omnipresent guide, but instead may merely be the protagonist referring to himself in the third person.

Multiple narrators

A writer may choose to let several narrators tell the story from different points of view. Then it is up to the reader to decide which narrator seems most reliable for each part of the story. See for instance the works of Louise Erdrich. Karen Louise Erdrich (born June 7, 1954) is a Native American author of Novels Poetry, and children's books. William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying is a prime example of the use of multiple narrators. William Faulkner (born William Cuthbert Falkner) ( September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American Author As I Lay Dying is a Novel written by the American author William Faulkner. Faulkner employs stream of consciousness by narrating the story from the first person view of multiple characters. Each chapter is devoted to the voice of a single character after whom it is titled.

Unreliable narrator

Main article: Unreliable narrator

An unreliable narrator is a force behind the power of first person narratives, and provides the only unbiased clues about the character of the narrator. In literature film theatre and music an unreliable narrator (a term coined by Wayne C In literature film theatre and music an unreliable narrator (a term coined by Wayne C To some extent all narrators are unreliable, varying in degree from trust-worthy Ishmael in Moby-Dick to the mentally disabled Benjy in The Sound and the Fury and the criminal Humbert Humbert in Lolita. Moby-Dick is an 1851 Novel by Herman Melville. The story tells the adventures of the wandering sailor Ishmael and his voyage on the whaleship The Sound and the Fury is one of the most celebrated novels of the Twentieth century, written by American author William Faulkner, which makes use Lolita (1955 is a Novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris, later translated by the author Other notable examples of unreliable narrators include the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day, Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, Chief Bromden in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Verbal Kint in the film The Usual Suspects. The Remains of the Day ( 1989) is the third published Novel by Japanese-British author Kazuo Ishiguro. Holden Caulfield is a Fictional character, the Protagonist of J The Catcher in the Rye is a Novel by J D Salinger. First published in the United States in 1951 the novel has been a frequently One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962 is a Novel written by Ken Kesey. The Usual Suspects is a 1995 American Neo-noir Film written by Christopher McQuarrie and directed by Bryan Singer. The Usual Suspects is a 1995 American Neo-noir Film written by Christopher McQuarrie and directed by Bryan Singer. One of the most famous examples of an unreliable narrator in American literature is Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is a Novel by the American author F Scott Fitzgerald. All of Henry James's fiction is based on the narrator's point of view and the limitations of their narrations and the motivation behind what they reveal. Henry James, OM ( –) son of theologian Henry James Sr, brother of the philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James

Unreliable narrators aren't limited to fiction. Memoirs, autobiographies and autobiographical fiction have the author as narrator and character. for other uses see Memoir (disambiguation As a literary Genre, a memoir (from the French: mémoire An autobiography, from the Greek αὐτός autos "self" βίος bios "life" and γράφειν graphein "to write" An autobiographical novel is a Novel based on the life of the author An author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created Sometimes the author purposely makes his narrator persona unreliable such as Jim Carroll in The Basketball Diaries. A persona, in the word's everyday usage is a social Role or a character played by an Actor. This article is not about corporate consultant and author Jim Carroll The Basketball Diaries is a 1978 book written by American author and musician Jim Carroll.

See also

• Film theory
• First-person narrative
• Literary criticism
• Literary theory
• Narrative
• Point of view (literature)
• Style (fiction)
• Voice-over

External links

• "Fiction-Writing Schizophrenia: Juggling the Relationship between Author, Narrator, Character, and Reader" [1]
• Net Author - Reference site for writers
• The Narrator short film