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The narrator tells the story as he sees it, giving the reader the facts that he thinks are important and interjecting his own thoughts and perspective into the narrative. Rather than following an objective story, the reader can inhabit the narrator’s mind for a short time, understanding what drives him and seeing things through his eyes. In this case, the whole story is sparked by the narrator’s obvious love of and near obsession with elephants, which drives him to gather all the details about the town’s elderly elephant and, ultimately, witness the last moments of the elephant in its house.

However, some of what the narrator relates casts doubt on his reliability. Throughout his lengthy recap of the facts of the case, the narrator never mentions what he witnessed the night before the disappearance. He is reluctant to talk to police and only shares details when prodded by the magazine editor. The narrator’s reliability is particularly important in a story involving a mystery. What the narrator tells and when has an important influence on how the disappearance will be interpreted. Because of the story’s first-person point of view, it is difficult to know what has really happened, which adds to the surrealism, confusion, and unreality.

Previous section Foreshadowing

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