Narrators of dubious credibility are common in American literature, forcing readers to think for themselves and make decisions about what to believe. Henry James's The Turn of the Screw and Herman Melville's Billy Budd: Sailor 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 novels make him particularly attractive to the American mind. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay From the first lines of James' novel, the credibility of the text is suspect. Conveyed through the perspective of an unknown first-person narrator, the reader receives no information about the narrator, other than that he or she is present at a Christmas party where stories are told for entertainment. Along with the lack of information provided about the narrator, the atmosphere of the first scene creates questions. Since the portion within James's story revolves around fairy tale telling and ghost stories in particular, the reader must wonder whether the story Douglass provides that will consume the rest of the novel proper is being told simply as entertainment for the party or as a retelling of events that actually happened. 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 so many questions are raised at the beginning of the novel, the physical description of the manuscript and the story surrounding it must be convincing before the reader can trust the story. To achieve this effect, James has the character of Douglass provide extensive backstory to his story. Douglass notes that the manuscript “is in old faded ink and a beautiful 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 provided to re-establish both the credibility of Douglass 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 manuscript's extensive physical description, James effectively establishes Douglass as a credible source. There is no doubt about the origin of the manuscript, and Douglass's refusal to tell the story from memory assures the audience (both within the text and those reading the novel as a whole) that he is accurately recounting the events of the story. While Douglass's description and presentation of an actual manuscript attest to the validity of the story he is about to read, the novel's structure has become convoluted by the time the novel reaches Chapter I. Although the novel begins in the first person, and The story that Douglass reads is told in the first person, readers of The Turn of the Screw encounter different layers to each other and the material. Rather than a direct account 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. This, once again, creates credibility problems. Instead of experiencing the events of the novel and forming an opinion, readers are asked to form their own interpretations based on retelling one woman's experience. From here the novel is narrated in first person by the Housekeeper, an easier format to read. This simplification, however, does not eliminate questions of the novel's credibility. The first-person account ofGoverness about the events that occurred on the Bly estate is the only information readers can base their judgments on, and her credibility can be questioned early in her tale. After meeting Flora, the girl who would be present in her care, the housekeeper is taken on a tour of the house where she will stay. On this tour, the Housekeeper describes the house as "a romantic castle inhabited by a rosy elf", but then as "a large, ugly old but comfortable house, incorporating some features of an even older building, half moved and half half used” (James 32-3). The first images present a glorified portrait of the estate, while the second conveys a harsh reality. This scene alerts readers that the Governess seems to slip seamlessly between fantasy and reality. As the story progresses, the Governess begins to believe she sees ghosts within the estate. At the end of chapter III he says he saw, from a considerable distance, a “man without a hat” inside the house (James 40). This meeting is his first mention of the ghost, but since the Governess and the apparition are "too distant to call each other", there is some doubt as to what the Governess could have actually seen (James 40). The Governess waits until Chapter VI, which presumably takes place a couple of 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 housekeeper provides many more details about the man than the account of the actual encounter. The solitary detail of a man without a hat remains constant, but the housekeeper seems to take her cues from the questions posed 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 her. 'Amazingly!'” (James 48). This line, when read with the rest of the exchange between the two women, shows that the housekeeper takes her description from the information presented in Mrs. Grose's questions. The housekeeper's description of Mrs. Grose relies heavily on the power of suggestion, and the event has become further exaggerated. The governess's trustworthiness is further tested in her encounters with the children she has been hired to watch. Chapter XIV features a conversation between Miles and the Governess that seems like a match of wits. At one point in the discussion, the housekeeper admits, “I felt that perhaps, after all, perhaps I might be able to keep my wits about me” (James 84). This passage suggests that the housekeeper could lose her sanity as easily as she could keep it. A simple discussion about a child's behavior tested the Governess's sanity, and she has no problem reporting this fact. The accusations against the Governess's reliability seem to be mounting, and the ghosts seem more and more to be a figment of her imagination. Because the Governess is usually alone when she sees apparitions, it is difficult to ascertain the truth of their existence. James uses the Governess's questionable narration as well as the distance she 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 Crackdown allows readers to decide for themselves what 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 a seemingly omniscient combination of first person and third person. Throughout the story, the anonymous narratorit seems to limit itself to reporting the events that happen, also providing information on the thoughts of the characters the story is about. After Billy Budd's impressions in the first chapter, the narrator reports that the lieutenant who had come to pick up Billy saw Billy's farewell greeting as "a secret joke on the part of the new recruit, a subtle insult to impressions in general, and to his in particular" (Melville 49). Of the same scene, the narrator also reports that Billy's intentions were "not at all satirical in character" (Melville 49).This first exchange demonstrates what would appear to be an omniscient narrator. In this scene, the narrator is able to report the inner thoughts of two characters – a feature that is usually available only to the omniscient. This narrator's omniscience soon manifests itself as self-awareness. The narrator directly addresses his audience at the end of chapter two when he says, “the story in which [Billy Budd] is the principal figure is not a love story” (Melville 53). By addressing the genre of the story he is telling, the narrator has moved onto a different plane. This admission forces the reader to recognize that, although the story is not a novel, it is still a story that must be assigned a genre. In suggesting the genre to the audience, the narrator recognizes that his story must follow certain conventions. As the story progresses, the narrator seems to build melodrama by pitting goodness against evil. The narrator juxtaposes the pure goodness of Billy Budd with what he classifies 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 suggest something defective or abnormal in constitution and blood” (Melville 64). Claggart's description continues to create an air of mystery surrounding his past. Although the narrator has not denounced Claggart outright, the sense of mystery surrounding the master-at-arms, coupled with the apparent flaw in his constitution, biases readers against Claggart. A seemingly impartial narrator has imparted a bias to the story being told, and this forces the reader to question the narrator's motives for doing so. As the story progresses, the narrator continues to show Claggart plotting against Billy. All these plans lead to a final confrontation between the two in Captain Vere's cabin. The account of the events that occurred in the Captain's cabin and subsequent events 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 reports the events anyway. This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for a scene presented 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 passed during this interview was never known” (Melville 114). The narrator has no problem reporting the events of Claggart's murder at which only Billy and Captain Vere were present, but when the sentence arrives in which Billy and Captain Vere are the only characters present once again, the narrator mysteriously cannot provide details. This creates serious reliability problems. Or the narrator chose to. 1962.