SOURCE: Barker, Gerard A. “The Narrative Mode of Caleb Williams: Problems and Resolutions.” Studies in the Novel 25, no. 1 (spring 1993): 1-15.

In the following essay, Barker examines Godwin's original purpose in writing Caleb Williams, his initial use of third-person narration, and the changes he made to accommodate the shift to first person.

The inherent limitations of first-person narratives in which the hero recounts his own story have often been described.¹ Character analysis in memoir novels is usually limited both by the narrator's inability to view himself with the detachment of a privileged third-person narrator as well as enter the minds of other characters. As Mrs. Barbauld long ago observed, “what the hero cannot say, the author cannot tell.”² Or, to quote a more recent critic, “the author using the I-narrator deliberately goes forth to battle with one hand tied behind his back.”³ We know that Dostoevski abandoned his first-person...