Strawberry Spring: An Unreliable Narrator

Liar, deceiving, opinionated, mischievous. These are all characteristics of an unreliable narrator. Strawberry Spring by Stephen King which was about a mysterious fog and a man who starts to kill women on a college campus along with the occurrence of the fog. The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe was about a person who drove himself crazy of guilt for killing a man known to have a “vulture eye”. Lastly, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman this was about a woman who believes she is ill, but her husband does not believe her. She claims to see figures in the wallpaper of her bedroom and becomes insane. These stories provide examples of unreliable narrators. While these stories portray unreliability through lying, sneaking around,

and even going mad, one story stands out above the rest illustrating multiple characteristics, Strawberry Spring.

The narrator from Strawberry Spring is more unreliable than the narrator from The Yellow Wallpaper due to Strawberry Spring showing more signs of untrustworthiness throughout the story than The Yellow Wallpaper. Although the narrator from Strawberry Spring does many untrustworthy things, in The Yellow Wallpaper the narrator drives herself crazy at the fact that her husband does not believe her. When she said, “.. that is one reason I do not get well faster. You see he does not believe I am Sick!” (Gilman pg:1). She was making herself more and more sick to the point where she went crazy and became more untrustworthy. This may be the case, however, Stephen King’s story the narrator goes on a killing spree and does not remember killing the people proving him to be a liar and untrustworthy. At the end of the story, the narrator explains how his wife is upset by expressing “She wanted to know where I was last night. I can’t tell her because I don’t remember” (King

pg:8). The narrator does not recall what he has been doing in the past leaving him not to be trusted. Along with him not knowing his past doings he becomes a liar saying he has nothing to do with the multiple killings. When he finally is starts to put everything together he burst out, “And I’ve been thinking about the trunk of my car… and wondering why in the world I should be afraid to open it” (King pg:8). When he comes across the trunk, a sign of distress hits him finally realizing what has been going on. Hee might, just might, have had something to do with the mysterious killings occurring at New Sharon Teachers’ College. In the trunk are cut up pieces of the five victims of the killings that he had murdered. King’s narrator is more unreliable than Gilman’s narrator because in Strawberry Spring there is no vivid memory making him untrustworthy and a liar.
Stephen King’s narrator is more unreliable than Poe’s because in Strawberry Spring, the narrator had killed more people than the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart did.

Although Strawberry Spring’s narrator had multiple kills, the narrator from The Tell-Tale Heart knew the man he had killed, it was not someone random. The kill in Poe’s story was dear, unlike the kills that occurred in King’s were easily more gory. To support this, “... and a picture of the girl that had apparently been cut up with a pair of sheers” (King pg:3). This goes to show just how gory King’s narrator’s murders were. This goes to show that this narrator is more unreliable because he gives no thought to the victims, even after they are killed. He had no respect for them whatsoever. Another way the narrator is more reliable is that throughout the killings there was a pattern; only girls. The narrator had a conversation with his wife saying, “She thinks I was with another woman last night. And oh dear God, I think so too” (King pg:8). This provides proof that the narrator has been with other women and all of his victims are women. Leaving him as a liar, cheater, and perpetrator. The narrator from Strawberry Spring is more unreliable than the narrator from The Tell-Tale Heart because he has more kills that are more gory and have a

pattern.
In conclusion, King’s narrator is the most unreliable of them all, demonstrating multiple characteristics of an unreliable character. He is more unreliable than the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper because he is untrustworthy and the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart because he has multiple kills that are more gory. To be a liar, opinionated, deceiving, and mischievous is not only to be an unreliable narrator, but a majority of people in the world today.