Narrative and Ambiguity in the Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner

Abstract

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner has been the subject of critical discussion for a long period of time. The discussions mainly revolve around the inconsistencies and ambiguity of the two narratives in the novel: the Editor’s and Robert Wringhim’s. This paper shows how some of this ambiguity is warranted, and how some of it is possible to diminish by perceiving the narratives in a different way than some critics do. The novel is an ambiguous one, but since this paper does not directly discuss the character Gil-Martin, some of this ambiguity is missing.