Narrator and point of view

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story “Chinasa” is told from the perspective of a first-person narrator, who is also the main character. The narrator retrospectively looks at events that happened when she was a 30-year-old woman living during the war. The narrator takes an active part in the events, as she describes everything she saw happen around her during the war.

Because the events the narrator recounts happened over 40 years ago, the narrator appears to be unreliable: “I think it happened in January. (...) But I’m not sure. (...) I was never sure of dates during the war”. It is also possible that her memories were affected by the experience of war. Because of her trauma, she might not be able to recall the exact details of what happened. In t...