Unreliable Storytellers Don’t Just Mislead — They Perform in The Hand
February 16, 2026 · Uncategorized
When readers talk about unreliability in fiction, they usually mean error. The narrator misunderstands events, exaggerates details, or lacks full knowledge. Unreliability becomes a problem of perception. And, it’s usually when the narrator is in the story – first person.
In The Hand, unreliability is something else entirely. This is because it is narrated in the third person: the narrator is OUTSIDE the story.
Monsieur Bermutier, who is INSIDE the story, does not missee.
He stages. And the third-person narrator allows it.
The Storyteller as Professional
Bermutier is introduced as an examining magistrate by our anonymous third-person narrator, a man whose public role is to evaluate evidence and establish truth. This matters not because it guarantees accuracy, but because it automatically grants credibility.
When such a man tells a story, listeners lean in.
If he is disturbed, they feel permitted to be disturbed as well.
Authority does not correct fear here; it legitimizes it.
Knowing Exactly When to Speak
Notice how Bermutier controls the pacing of his tale. He withholds information. He allows pauses. He introduces grotesque detail only after establishing atmosphere.
This is not uncertainty. It is craftsmanship.
Bermutier knows:
- when to describe the hand
- when to deflect with professionalism
- when to invoke local customs like vendetta
- when to stop
Every choice is calibrated to maximum effect on his audience – and on us.
Bermutier as narrator hides truth intentionally.
He selects.
Quotation Marks and Theatrical Distance
The third-person narrator signals performance formally. Once Bermutier begins his story, quotation marks appear and remain. We are no longer hearing events from the anonymous third-person narrator; we are hearing someone INSIDE the story narrating events.
This matters because quotation marks are boundaries, and signals to us. They remind us that we are receiving information that is mediated, shaped, and delivered for an audience.
Bermutier is not just uncovering a mystery.
He is reproducing fearsurrounding that even.
Changing the Subject at the Right Moment
One of the most revealing moments in The Hand occurs when Sir John Rowell explains the origin of the hand. The explanation is extreme. It borders on madness.
What does Bermutier do?
He changes the subject.
This is not skepticism. It is discretion. He knows his audience. He knows what will frighten and what will fracture credibility.
An investigator would press.
A performer pivots.
Performance Without Accountability
Because Bermutier frames his story as unresolved, he bears no responsibility for its implications. He does not have to decide whether the hand was alive, whether vendetta explains anything, or whether justice was done.
Performance allows him to end with effect rather than conclusion.
The listeners tremble.
The story ends.
Nothing is required of anyone.
Why This Is Unreliability of a Higher Order
We’re being shown something subtle when Bermutier is talking: how authority and storytelling can collaborate to suspend judgment indefinitely. You see it sometimes on crime dramas as detectives speculate on what happened. You see it in business strategy sessions as companies try to figure out the playing field. This suspension of judgement is in every “what if” scenario ever conceived. And that, in itself, can be dangerous.
The Reader’s Position
As readers, we occupy the same position as the women in the room. We are not asked to verify. We are not asked to act. We are invited to experience fear without consequence.
That invitation is seductive.
And the story accepts no responsibility for what we do with fear. This is why many readers complain about his stories: their abrupt ending. But that is also why they work so well! Life doesn’t give us all the answers all the time.
Why This Still Matters
Modern storytelling often celebrates ambiguity as sophistication. Maupassant understood that ambiguity can also be a performance — one that protects both teller and listener from commitment.
The Hand endures because it exposes how easily fear becomes entertainment when authority lends it shape and distance.
The story is not just about a murderous hand, something supernatural. That is the superficial reading.
It is about how fear is told — and how willingly we listen. It is after all, the only thing we have to fear, isn’t it?