How well can we judge the characterisations in the novel when Dowell is such an unreliable narrator? A question to consider is whether he presented himself in a true light or manipulated his description of events to prevent the reader from discovering his true character. However
"by the end of the novel Dowell has tested the limits of rational explanation. He has interpreted character by religion, nationality, gender and the calendar. Dowell's disillusionment follows the arc of modernism; he begins with presuppositions typical of much Victorian characterization: the individual conditioned by circumstance, composed of intelligible motives, susceptible to moral analysis-the justified self. Then, confronted with the singularity of desire, his 'generalizations' totter and fall."[6]
Dowell admits that his assumptions and characterisations of the people in his life may be flawed.
