Point of View

“The Story of an Unknown Man” is told through first person narration from Stepan’s perspective. Stepan is the unknown man the title refers to, as he is a secret agent working on behalf of an unnamed cause. This perspective remains consistent throughout the novella.

Importantly, Stepan is consumptive. Regarding his illness, he says, “I don’t know whether it was under the influence of illness or of a beginning change in worldview, which I hadn’t noticed then, but day after day I was overcome by a passionate, nagging thirst for ordinary, humdrum life… And when I stood by the door and watched Orlov drinking coffee, I felt I was not a servant but a man to whom everything in the world was interesting, even Orlov” (242). Stepan’s illness calls his reliability as a narrator into question. It suggests that madness might play a...