An
unreliable narrator is a
narrator, whether in literature, film, or theatre, whose credibility has been seriously compromised. The term was coined in 1961 by
Wayne C. Booth in
The Rhetoric of Fiction. While unreliable narrators are almost by definition
first-person narrators, arguments have been made for the existence of unreliable
second- and
third-person narrators, especially within the context of film and television.