Narrator and point of view

The short story “Child of God” by Genevieve Abravanel is told from the point of view of a first-person narrator who is also the main character. The narrator confesses to a series of events that led to her driving drunk and running over a teenage boy and meeting his family afterwards. 

The narrator’s reliability can be called into question. Firstly, she admits that when the accident took place, she was drunk and she does not remember much of what happened: “ ‘I was drunk,’ I said. ‘Too drunk even to remember’ ”. Similarly, the narrator does not fully admit her guilt in the accident: “He shouldn’t have been in the road. I shouldn’t have been drunk. It was possible I was weaving”. The uncertain language she uses suggests that the narrator either does not fully know what ...