The Power of Omnisciencey

We all know that an omniscient narrator is the "all-knowing" person who reveals bits and pieces of every character's inner thoughts. But even though this narrator is supposed to disclose the entire situation form everybody's point of view, is it possible for this speaker to be biased and give the audience a skewed perception of the whole story? Can omniscient narrators have an opinion? It is a assumption that the 3rd person omniscient point of view gives us little bias as possible so that we as the readers can make an assumption for ourselves, but after some research, I realize that much of great literature uses a biased narrator, sometimes referred to as polyphony.

A Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin came up with this concept that the narrator does not simply just show different points of view, but selects certain thoughts and opinions to reveal his own beliefs. This was shown widely in the classic works of writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who purposefully developed his characters unevenly when using the omniscient point of view.

While most people may not have heard of those works, another great contemporary example is none other than Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. Even in our class analyses we found that the narrator described characters like Sir William Bradshaw and Miss Kilman in a very critical and disapproving manner.
Despite being used in many great works, it is difficult to say how effective an "unreliable" omniscient narrator can be. Should we even trust the ideas of such a storyteller whose background we don't even know? It's difficult to tell, though it has shown up in pop culture many times.

Shows like Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars both have an all-knowing character who slowly reveals the secrets and truths behind everyone in the community. How nice it must be to be able to have so much information and power to manipulate as you please.  >:)

A Measure of Analysis