The Narrator is never given a name, but the entirety of The Shadow Lines is constructed from memories of his own experiences, and the memories of stories that people tell him. Despite his love for certain people—Tridib, Tha’mma his grandmother, and Ila—he is extremely passive. After Ila rejects him, his role becomes that of an observer. He rarely inserts himself into the action; he simply tells the reader what has happened. The Narrator is often a frustrating character because his style of storytelling works in much the same way as memory itself. His delivery takes place largely in the form of stream of consciousness. Just as a thought can suddenly arrive in the mind, the Narrator often switches time periods in the middle of a page or paragraph, accurately depicting the fallibility of memory and forcing the reader to figure out where in the timeline the Narrator’s memory is taking place.

Though passive, the Narrator also shows agency by the end of the novel by unraveling what happened to Tridib in Dhaka. In Part 1, the Narrator obsessed over Tridib’s knowledge and wanted to showboat in front of others much like Tridib.