How reliable are the narrators in the novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and the fiction novel Great Expectations of Charles Dickens Essay

A rock-steady vote counter is one who is factual, trus dickensrthy, and competent in relating the story. Generally, there ar two types of fibbers. The foremost individual narrator focuses in-depth on only one mention, which could be his or her character, and the impact of other characters on this sole character. Third mortal narrators provide a comprehensive picture of the different characters and the situations unfolding in the story.While third party narrators receive greater regard for reliableness due to omniscience, a first off or third person narrator could be reliable or unreliable depending on the character of the narrator and the intention of the novel. The novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is a trap narration, which means the story lies within a story. To achieve this end, there are two narrators. The first narrator is unknown and provides an introduction of the character of the aid narrator, Charlie Marlow.The narration describes Marlow as having deep-set cheeks and yellowish complexion nevertheless erectly indicating he is non heavily built but not slight either. The unknown narrator, by representing the views of the other volume on board the transmit in describing Marlow as non-conventional or uncharacteristic because of his tendency to weave stories and itemise tales introspectively, expresses the reliability of his assessment of Marlow. This puts into question the factual manner of Marlows narration.In Marlows accounts of his trip along the Congo River to fetch Kurtz, an ivory monger trapped in an African village, the focus is more of his interpretation of people and events without much recount of who these people are and the context of the situation. Marlow is clearly against colonialism but do not recount in detail the situation in Africa that makes colonialism repulsive to him and what are the solutions. The trustworthiness of Marlow as a narrator is not clear-cut. Marlow is a decent person but his actions do not unendingly reflect his views.He is against the exploitative nature of the colonial explorers in Africa and feels loaded down(p) by the situation but his character is complicit about the situation. He has circumscribed interaction with the natives and does not express their views. Marlow is a competent narrator but only for himself. His accounts do not reflect the experiences and perspectives of the other people he talks about such as the villagers of the communities he visited or the colonial communities in Africa. In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, the narrator is shoot, who is also the of import character of the novel.Pips narrative is factual because he tells not only about his good side such as fate people and becoming a gentleman but also of his pestiferous side such as his mistaken impression about Magwich and his overplus of Joes uneducated ways. Pip is a protagonist in the novel, an deprive but kindhearted boy, who although frightened to steal food for a thi ef, cause him guilt, and although yielding to the initial class-based prejudices wrought by society, ended up devising things right. The nature of the character of Pip as trustworthy and sensible makes his accounts reliable. Pip is an eyewitness narrator.The novel is a semi-biographical work, which means that Pip is telling his behavior sentence story according to his own experiences and perspectives. This finds expression in some of the chapter titles such as The Convict Frightens Me, I Execute My trust, and My State of point. Pip is also the main character. This means that he is competent to itemize his story and the story of the people around him whom he witnessed. This makes his accounts reliable because of first hand experience and view. Although a first person narrator, the trustworthy character of Pip makes him a reliable storyteller of his own life and the life of the people around him.Heart of Darkness and Great Expectations include first person narrators. Although, t here is general reservation towards the reliability of first person narrators, the reliability of these narrators also depend on character, plot and intention of the story. ground on the criteria of a reliable narrator, the narrator in Great Expectations is more reliable because of his factual account and trustworthy character while the narrator in Heart of Darkness is not very factual or trustworthy. The third person narrator in Heart of Darkness attests to the atypical character of the first person narrator.