Narrators of questionable credibility are common in American literature, forcing readers to think for themselves and make decisions about what that they must believe. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James and Billy Budd: Sailor by Herman Melville contain multiple examples of how the unreliable narrator can be used and interpreted. This analysis suggests that although the unreliable narrator is not exclusive to American fiction, the qualities he brings to the novels make him particularly appealing to the American mind. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay From the first lines of James's novel, the credibility of the text is suspect. Relayed through the point of view of an unknown first-person narrator, the reader is given no information about the storyteller, other than the fact that he is attending a Christmas party where stories are told for entertainment. Coupled with the lack of information provided about the narrator, the atmosphere of the first scene raises questions. Because the party in James's story revolves around fairy tales and ghost stories in particular, the reader must wonder whether the story provided by Douglass and which will occupy the remainder of the novel proper is being told simply as entertainment for party or as entertainment. account of real events. With an unknown narrator and a questionable party atmosphere, the story that will be told for the rest of the novel seems to have lost credibility before it even begins. Because many questions are raised early in the novel, the physical description of the manuscript and the story surrounding it must be compelling before the reader can trust the story. To achieve this effect, James has the character of Douglass provide a broad backstory to his story. Douglass notes that the manuscript “is written in old faded ink and in the finest hand…. That of a woman. She has been dead for twenty years. She sent me the pages in question before she died” (James 24). This selection is proposed to restore both Douglass's credibility and that of the novel. This passage tells the reader that Douglass has a physical copy of the story in his possession and that it was written by another person. By including the detailed physical description of the manuscript, James effectively establishes Douglass as a credible source. There is no doubt as to the origins of the manuscript, and Douglass's refusal to tell the story from memory assures the audience (both in the text and those reading the novel as a whole) that he is telling accurately the events of the story. While Douglass' description and presentation of an actual manuscript attest to the validity of the story he is about to read, the structure of the novel has become convoluted by the time the novel even reaches Chapter I. Well that the novel begins in the first person, and the story Douglass reads is told in the first person, readers of The Turn of the Screw encounter several layers between themselves and the material. Rather than a simple recounting of events, the reader encounters an unknown narrator's account of a man reading a woman's diary. It’s almost as if the reader is placed in a fifth-person perspective. Again, this creates credibility issues. Instead of experiencing the events of the novel and forming an opinion, readers are invited to formulate their interpretations based on the account of one woman's experience. From there, the novel is told in the first person by the governess, a simpler format to tell. read. This simplification does not eliminatehowever not the credibility questions of the novel. The governess's first-person account of the events at the Bly estate is the only information on which readers can base their judgment, and her credibility can be called into question from the beginning of her account. Upon meeting Flora, the young girl who would be under her care, the governess shows the house in which she will be staying. During this visit, the housekeeper describes the house as "a romantic castle inhabited by a pink pixie", but then as "a large old and ugly, but practical house, embodying some features of an even older, half-finished building. moved and half moved.” used” (James 32-3). The first images paint a glorified portrait of the estate, while the second convey a harsh reality. This scene alerts readers that the governess seems to slip seamlessly between fantasy and reality. As the governess's story progresses, she begins to believe that she is seeing ghosts in the estate. At the end of chapter III, she recounts how she saw, at a considerable distance, a “man without a hat” inside the house (James 40). This encounter is his first mention of the ghost, but as the governess and the apparition are "too far apart to call each other", there is some doubt as to what the governess could actually have seen (Jacques 40). The Governess waits until Chapter VI, which will likely occur a few weeks later, to reveal her encounter to the only other adult on the estate, Mrs. Grose. The discussion between these two women is strange to say the least. In this discussion, the governess provides much more detail about the man than she did in her account of the actual encounter. The one detail of a man without a hat remains constant, but the governess seems to take inspiration from the questions asked by Mrs. Grose. At one point, in response to Mrs. Grose's question about the ghost's beauty, the housekeeper writes, "I saw a way to help him." “Remarkably! » » (James 48). This line alone, read with the rest of the exchange between the two women, shows the governess drawing her description from the information presented in Mrs. Grose's questions. The governess's description to Mrs. Grose relies heavily on the powers of suggestion, and the event has become even more exaggerated. The governess's trustworthiness is further tested during her encounters with the children she has been hired to care for. Chapter XIV features a conversation between Miles and the governess that resembles a match of wits. At one point in the discussion, the governess admits, “I felt that perhaps I could, after all, manage to keep my cool” (James 84). This passage suggests that the governess could just as easily lose her sanity as she could keep it. A simple discussion about a child's behavior has strained the governess's sanity, and she has no problem reporting it. The arguments against the governess's trustworthiness seem to mount, and the ghosts seem more and more to be a figment of her imagination. As the governess is usually alone when she sees the apparitions, it is difficult to verify the truth of their existence. James uses the governess's questionable narration as well as the distance he has created between the reader and the material to generate a sense of mystery around the novel. By employing an unreliable narrator, James effectively destabilizes the narrative to force the reader to make judgments about the text. The turn of the screw allows readers to decide for themselves what they want to believe. Billy Budd: Sailor by Herman Melville was published in 1924, some twenty-six years after the publication of James' novel. The narrator is aseemingly omniscient combination of first person and third person. Throughout the story, the unnamed narrator seems to simply be reporting the events that are occurring, while also providing insight into the thoughts of the characters the story is reporting on. Regarding Billy Budd's impressions in the first chapter, the narrator reports that the lieutenant who came to pick up Billy considered Billy's parting salute as "a secret outing on the part of the new recruit, a sly insult to impressions in general , and that of himself in particular.” (Melville 49). About the same scene, the narrator also reports that Billy's intentions were "in no way a satirical turn" (Melville 49).This first exchange demonstrates what appears to be an omniscient narrator. In this scene, the narrator is able to report the inner thoughts of two characters – a trait that is usually only available to the omniscient. This narrator's omniscience soon manifests itself through self-awareness. The narrator addresses his audience directly at the end of chapter two when he states, "the story in which [Billy Budd] is the principal character is not a romance" (Melville 53). By approaching the genre of the story he is telling, the narrator has moved to another level. This admission forces the reader to recognize that, although the story is not a romance, it is nonetheless a story that must be assigned a genre. By suggesting a genre to the audience, the narrator recognizes that his story must follow certain conventions. As the story progresses, the narrator seems to construct a melodrama by pitting good against evil. The narrator juxtaposes the pure goodness of Billy Budd with what he describes as pure evil in John Claggart. Although the narrator does not directly denounce Claggart, his initial description of the character is far from flattering. In chapter eight, the narrator introduces Claggart by saying that his complexion “seemed to hint at something defective or abnormal in the constitution and blood” (Melville 64). Claggart's description continues creating an air of mystery surrounding his past. Although the narrator does not denounce Claggart outright, the sense of mystery surrounding the fencing master coupled with the apparent flaw in his constitution prejudices readers against Claggart. A seemingly impartial narrator has imparted bias to the story being told, forcing the reader to question the narrator's motivations. As the story progresses, the narrator continues to show Claggart plots against Billy. These plans all culminate in a final confrontation between the two in Captain Vere's cabin. The recounting of the events in the captain's cabin as well as the events that followed create an interesting problem in the narrative. In chapter nineteen, the narrator describes the scene in which Billy kills Claggart by stating that, "as quick as the flame of a cannon discharged at night, his right arm shot out and Claggart fell to the deck" ( Melville 99). The only three characters present for this scene were Billy, Captain Vere and Claggart. Now that Billy has killed Claggart, only Captain Vere and Billy remain witnesses to the murder. However, the narrator continues to report the events. This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for a scene shown in chapter twenty-two. In this chapter, Captain Vere and Billy are alone again, but this time the narrator notes that "beyond the communication of the sentence, what happened during this interview has never been known" (Melville 114). The narrator has no problem relating the events of Claggart's murder to which only Billy and Captain Vere were present, but when it comes to the communication of the. 1962.