The Unreliable Narrator

Hearken! and observe how healthily—how calmly I can tell you the whole story.
– The Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe

Do you think it’s possible to ever see the past as it actually was?
– Danny, The Dutch House by Anne Patchett

In any story with an unreliable narrator—Nelly in Wuthering Heights, Nick and Amy in Gone Girl, Pi Patel in The Life of Pi, Mrs. de Winter in Rebecca—there’s a jarring moment when you realize the story may not be entirely as you’ve been told it. It always comes as a surprise, because we assume the narrator of any story is offering us truth we can rely upon, although the fact is that each character has their own perception of events. Sometimes the characters themselves begin to realize this. In The Dutch House, which I just finished reading for a book club, Danny and Maeve find themselves irresistibly drawn back to the house their stepmother unjustly ejected them from as children. As they sit gazing at it from the curb across the street, nursing bitter memories, Danny begins to wonder if their stepmother was as villainous as they remember, or whether they only chose to replay her faults in their minds. 

Here is the truth: we all narrate our lives to ourselves. We do not perceive events as mere data points, but we immediately and inherently assign motive and value. We collate them into conclusions, we fit them into assumptions. In the absence of data, we write in the gaps. We must find meaning, and we do that through telling our own tales. And my strongest emotions—the kind of anxiety, anger, or embarrassment that makes my heart rate go up—are often a response to those inner narratives.

“The story I am telling myself is . . .”

But here is the other truth: we are all unreliable narrators. We are all telling ourselves a story that may not be entirely true. One friend shared that it’s helpful in arguments with your spouse to make the distinction between “he is X” versus “I think that he is X.” Brene Brown perhaps puts it better with the phrase she tries to use during every argument with her husband: “The story I am telling myself is…” That phrase creates space for inner dialogue—it forces us to pause and evaluate what we are feeling, and what that feeling is a response to. It is a neutral phrase that allows us to explore without judgment. And if we say that phrase out loud, it is an “I” statement that allows us to share honestly while avoiding accusatory “you” statements that tend to engender defensiveness from the listener.

I may be telling myself he doesn’t care about me when the truth is closer to he didn’t understand what I needed. I may be telling myself my child never does what I ask when the truth is closer to my child didn’t hear me because they were distracted. I often find that my version of the tale is less nuanced, more bad-guy-good-guy, more always-never, than the truth. My version often enlarges my fears, insecurities, or unmet needs. My version is warped by my deteriorating mood or unacknowledged fatigue. What is the story I am telling myself?

In the end, that prompt is just a beginning. It is a first step that forces me to pause, to identify, to consider my own unreliability, and that is a necessary checkpoint. Sometimes simply listening and considering alternative possibilities is enough. But ultimately, if I am an unreliable narrator, what is the truth? What do I live by if I cannot entirely trust what my own feelings or senses are telling me? “You will know the truth,” Jesus says in John 8, “and the truth will set you free.” What does it take to know a truth that sets us free from our oft-unrecognized tyranny of self and sin, our own bias and fallibility? It takes asking, “What is the story God is telling me?” For the master Storyteller is always about some tale, one that we can hear if we abide in the word and live as true disciples (John 8:31). It is a story which anchors our stories, which reveals their value and meaning, which becomes the lens through which we learn to see better all the tales within and around us.