What effect does an unreliable narrator typically have on a reader's interpretation?

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Unreliable narration pushes readers to question what they’re being told. When the narrator’s trustworthiness is suspect—whether because of bias, misperception, mental state, or deliberate deception—the reader cannot accept every detail as true. This creates ambiguity about what actually happened and about the narrator’s motives, so readers must read between the lines, weigh inconsistencies, and infer the real events or themes from fragments and gaps. The effect is to foreground how perspective shapes meaning, not to offer a straightforward, fully trustworthy account.

This doesn’t make setting more vivid, and it doesn’t rush a plot to a quick resolution. It also doesn’t guarantee that all information can be trusted. Instead, it centers the reader’s interpretive role and highlights how bias and unreliability influence interpretation.