When the Prologue opens, the narrator and letter writer Lázaro argues that good stories should be heard by all. The narrator appears to be well educated. He knows history and uses elevated diction. For instance, he invokes Pliny and Cicero to make his point that all stories have something interesting about them and should be heard. He argues that writers want to be rewarded when they’ve finished a book, “not financially but with the knowledge that their work is bought and read and praised if it deserves praise” (3). It is, the narrator says, the desire for praise that makes someone do something dangerous.

At the same time, the narrator insults his own story by calling it “a childish little story” (4). He then presents himself as someone who has seen disaster, danger, and bad luck. When he recites his birth and backstory, he clearly places himself in the lower classes as a poor boy who suffered and endured great hardship to become who he is today: a man with money and fine dress.

The Prologue then takes a turn. Where once it seemed the narrator was appealing to any and all readers, it becomes evident that the narrator is actually writing to someone whom he addresses as “Your Honor.