Mantel’s Transposed Narrative: The Ethics of Rewriting History in Historical Fiction

Historical fiction serves as both a reflection and reinterpretation of the past, raising ethical questions about the extent to which novelists should reshape history in service of narrative and contemporary discourse. Hilary Mantel’s Tudor trilogy Wolf Hall (2009), Bring Up the Bodies (2012), and The Mirror and the Light (2020) exemplifies a transposed narrative approach, re-centering Thomas Cromwell as a complex, humanized figure rather than the traditional villain of Tudor history. This paper examines how Mantel challenges conventional historiography, employing narrative techniques to reconstruct Cromwell’s character while navigating the ethical implications of altering recorded history. By analyzing Mantel’s manipulation of historical sources, interweaving of fact and fiction, and engagement with historiographical debates, this study evaluates how her novels illuminate the tension between narrative truth and historical authenticity. The ethical responsibility of the historical novelist is further explored, questioning whether such retellings distort or enhance our understanding of the past. Mantel’s work ultimately argues for the fluidity of history, illustrating how historical fiction functions as a counterpoint to official records, exposing biases in historical narratives and offering fresh perspectives on well-documented events.