A narrative is a story, real or imaginary, that is presented to the reader as a sequence of events. Because they can be fiction or nonfiction, they can be told in a variety of ways such as a biography, legends, and in the case of Caleb Williams a novel. As part of human nature, humans have been telling stories ever since we could communicate to one another. The purpose of this was generally to convey messages and wisdom from older generations to newer generations. Modern narratives now serve to spread the writer’s morals, cultural, and political perspectives.

Caleb Williams is presented as a first-person narrative, the story being told from Caleb’s perspective. First-person narratives help the reader get into the mind of the narrator, to understand their feelings and viewpoints on the world. As Caleb tells us his story, we get to see how Caleb’s views change. One example of this is when Caleb sees the wanted notice for him after he escapes; he starts to hate Falkland who was not content with destroying Caleb’s reputation and confining him to jail for a period of time, and who is hunting down Caleb with “unmitigatable cruelty.”

The story is also told to the readers in a retrospective narrative, instead of a direct narrative perspective. In a direct narrative the events being told are currently happening to the narrator, but Caleb is telling us the events of the past with his knowledge of the future influencing his narration. This is how he knows of all of Falkland’s past events in the first volume of the novel, such as the interactions between Falkland and Tyrrel in the past.

The book ‘Caleb Williams’ can be described as a travel memoir, documenting Caleb’s thoughts as he travels to escape Falkland’s grasp.

BARKER, GERARD A. “THE NARRATIVE MODE OF ‘CALEB WILLIAMS’: PROBLEMS AND RESOLUTIONS.” Studies in the Novel, vol. 25, no. 1, 1993, pp. 1–15. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/29532912.

“Narrative.” Literary Devices, https://literarydevices.net/narrative/.