Narrator and point of view

The short story “A Shot in the Light” by Lion Goodman is rendered from the perspective of a first-person narrator who is also one of the main characters. Keep in mind that the narrator of the story is Lion Goodman, the author, who tells the story of his real near-death experience in 1978.

From the tense of verbs employed in the story, it is quite clear that the story is going to be a recollection of past events. The narrator tells the story after the main events have passed and after having enough time to analyze what has happened.

Because we are dealing with a first-person narrator, it is important to focus on the narrator’s reliability. Generally, first-person narrators are subjective and tend to be biased when depicting a certain event. In the story, there are moments when the narrator’s reliability may be questioned or when we might ass...