Unreliable Narrators

When we pick up a novel and immerse ourselves into the lives, stories and adventures of the characters there, we also let them into our own. We form our own opinions of them, theorize on the outcomes of different events, and sacrifice the hours we're supposed to spend sleeping to find out how close we came to the mark. But within this beautiful symbiosis of the reader giving the characters life in her mind and the characters stimulating the reader's imagination, sometimes a conflict arises: can the reader trust what the characters are telling him? Or are they just as unreliable as anyone else? Just as capable of fooling us or leading us on, be it intentional or not? 

This list of literature's most unreliable narrators points out the details of perspective that can change the way we think about what certain characters are telling us. You may have already questioned how honest some of them are, or even if they've just deluded themselves, or maybe you'll want to re-read some of the stories to gain a new perspective! Either way, we as readers have the privilege of deciding for ourselves which side of the story to take to heart.