Unreliable (biased) narrators : damaged credibility
They present twisted, limited or inaccurate events. So how much of this is true?
The madman
The disturbed / tortured character.
(emotionally unstable)
The naïf
The story is told through the eyes of an innocent simpleton. (here).
He embellishes some stories for ex. (Vietnam)
We can't be 100% sure it happened the way he told because of his overly simplistic, naïve way of seeing things.
He is a simple-minded, good-hearted, straight-talking Alabama boy.
(See also : The curious incident of the dog in the night time)
The trickster
O'HENRY
The narrator that purposefully leads you astray
The liar
Witty ending / the twist :
O. Henry's trademark is his witty, plot-twisting endings, and his warm characterization of the awkward and difficult situations and the creative ways people find to resolve them. His most famous short story, The Gift of the Magi, epitomizes his style. It's a story about a young married couple, short on money, who wish to buy each other Christmas gifts. That problem -- their lack of funds -- finds a famously endearing and ironic resolution.**
The innocent.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Huck's innocence leads him to make overly charitable judgments about the characters in the novel.
The weak failing character (faulty memory). memory failure
Elizabeth is missing
Memento, David Nolan's film about amnesia, the main protagonist is unable to make new memories.
(the audience is denied the same information the protagonist is denied)
The disturbed character
The guilty:
Humbert Humbert, the main character and narrator of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, often tells the story in such a way as to justify his Hebephilia (fixation on young girls), in particular his sexual relationship with his 12-year-old stepdaughter.
he isn't telling us everything...
**The Cop and the Anthem is about A New York City hobo with a creative solution for dealing with the cold city streets during winter. Another story, A Retrieved Reformation, is about a safecracker Jimmy Valentine, fresh from prison, whose life takes an unexpected turn while casing his next crime scene. The Ransom of Red Chief, a story about two hapless kidnappers that snatch the wrong boy. All of these stories are highly entertaining and they are read for pleasure and used in classrooms around the world.