Question

Read the excerpt from "The Lady Maid's Bell." But that wasn’t the only queer thing in the house. The very next day I found out that Mrs. Brympton had no nurse; and then I asked Agnes about the woman I had seen in the passage the afternoon before. Agnes said she had seen no one, and I saw that she thought I was dreaming. To be sure, it was dusk when we went down the passage, and she had excused herself for not bringing a light; but I had seen the woman plain enough to know her again if we should meet. I decided that she must have been a friend of the cook’s, or of one of the other women servants: perhaps she had come down from town for a night’s visit, and the servants wanted it kept secret. Some ladies are very stiff about having their servants’ friends in the house overnight. At any rate, I made up my mind to ask no more questions. How does this excerpt support the idea that the story is told by an unreliable narrator?

Answer 1

Answer:

The narrator does not trust what she has seen.

Explanation:

This is the statement that supports the idea that the story is told by an unreliable narrator. The first thing we learn in this passage is that the woman is very sure of having seen someone who appeared to be a nurse. Nevertheless, when she discusses this with Agnes, she begins to doubt her own experience. She then tells us that maybe the woman was not a nurse, and she decides that she will not ask more questions. The fact that the narrator does not trust what she has seen shows that she is an unreliable narrator.

Answer 2

This fact that this passage is from the perspective of an unreliable narrator is supported by the fact that nobody believes the narrator and at times she barely believes herself.

When she asks Agnes, it is clear that Agnes believes the narrator was dreaming or is lying. The narrator then second guesses herself and tries to justify the vision she saw as some friend of the servants. She decides not to ask anyone else (in case they also think she is making it up), which leads the reader to think that she might not be entirely reliable.