The narrator of the book monster is a 16 year old boy named Steve. He is a film class student in Harlem. He is on trial for murder with another person he knows from his city. Steves notebook may not be the truth. Steve is an unreliable narrator because he has a reason to lie so he doesn’t get put in prison,he knows that the prosecution will see his notebook, he unsure about if he did anything wrong. Steve is an unreliable narrator because he has a reason to lie so he doesn’t get put in prison. Steve doesn’t want to spend his youth in prison. Steve wrote in his notebook “I want to be away from this place so bad, away from this place, away from this place.” There is no way to be sure that he is telling the truth. If he did commit the crime it would benefit him to lie making him unreliable. …show more content…
Anything he writes in the notebook could be used against him in the trial. Steve wrote in his notebook “Before she left, Ms. O’Brien warned me not to write anything in my notebook that I did not want the prosecutor to see.” If he did commit the crime and he told the truth in the notebook they could use that to put him in prison. This gives him another reason to lie making him unreliable. Another reason Steve is unreliable is he’s not sure if what he did was wrong. Steve admits in the book that he did go into the drugstore and later says he’s unsure if he’s telling himself the truth. Steve says “anybody can walk into a drugstore and look around. Is that what I’m on trial for?“ Steve later writes in his notebook “and I knew she felt that I didn’t do anything wrong. It was me who wasn’t sure.” He could’ve convinced himself he didn’t do anything wrong. He admits to not knowing if he was wrong in the situation making him an unreliable