Narrator and point of view
Marlish Glorie's short story “Machine Man” is a first-person narration. The narrator is also the main character in the story, a young man named Paul.
The first-person narrative gives readers access to the narrator’s thoughts and knowledge: “While he and Jack were laughing, I was thinking. Nut was right; there were lots of old ladies at the nursing home.” (ll. 57-58) However, it also limits the narration as it mostly follows Paul’s point of view on the events.
The other characters’ points of view are only conveyed occasionally through direct speech: “ ‘Notice you been going to that nursing home a lot lately.’ Black Jack sized me up. ‘Not doing anything stupid, are you?’ He stopped. ‘I find out that you're fucking old ladies - I'll kill you’ ” (ll. 98-99). But we don’t know what the other characters really think. The narrator can only make assumptions based on their attitude: “This is how B...