Yusupov Oybek Nematjonovich Ahmedova Nigora Shavkatovna

reliable narrator 
or an 
unreliable 
one. 
Several advantages of the first two methods (i.e. the first-person narrative made 
by one of the characters) should be mentioned. 
A 1
st
-person narrative is a very effective means of revealing the personality of 
the character who narrates. The narrator tells what he thinks and feels, and the reader 
easily understands his motives, his nature. The writer without resorting to analysis 
gets the advantage of defining this character more closely. He does not have to say 
whether the character is sensitive, easily affected or self-controlled, kind or cruel, he 
simply lets the character demonstrate his features. That becomes clear and visible to 
the reader, and this first-hand testimony increases the immediacy and freshness of the 
impression.
Secondly, these two narrative methods increase the credibility of the story. The 
narrator's statements gain in weight and are more readily accepted by the reader, for 
they are backed by the narrator's presence in the described events – he relates what he 
himself has seen.
Thirdly, a story told by a first-person narrator tends to be more confiding. The 
narrator often assumes the informal tone, addresses the reader directly and establishes 
a personal relationship with him. The reader is treated trustfully as one to whom the 

---

212 
narrator confides his personal impressions and thoughts. This can be clearly seen in 
The Lady's Maid 
by K.Mansfield. On account of all that, it 
is 
the inner world of the 
character-narrator that is generally in the focus of interest. 
However, the possibilities of the first-person narrator are limited. One of the 
basic limitations is that a story told by a character is limited to what that character 
could reasonably be expected to know. (The first-person narrator is a person, and he 
can see and hear only what would be possible for a person to see and hear in his 
situation. He cannot enter into the minds of the other characters, he cannot know all 
that they do and say. The first-person narrator may be reliable or unreliable. He may 
misinterpret some events, which he sometimes cannot fully understand He relates 
them and meditates about them from his subjective point of view. The reader, 
therefore, gets a biased view of the other characters (as in the case of 
The Lady’s 
Maid 
by K. Mansfield). But this limitation may turn into an advantage: the reader is 
stimulated to reflect and pronounce his own judgment. The fact that the character who 
narrates has less experience than the reader creates an irony. If 
The Lady’s Maid 
had 
not been told by the maid herself, if she had not been so naive, and if her life-story 
had been told by a dispassionate narrator, it is doubtful that the story would arouse 
such deep emotional response and convey its message so effectively. 
There are no limitations on the freedom of the