Narrator and point of view

The short story “Mink” by Marina Warner is a first person-narration. The character of one of the daughters, Bea, is also the one who tells the story in retrospect. In other words, the narrator already knows what happened and how the story will end.

The narrator of the present is an adult: “The mink was in a plastic dress bag in the cupboard by the downstairs loo when I was at Donna’s last house, clearing it out, three months ago.” (ll. 114-115).

However, as a first-person narrator, Bea is confined to a limited point of view. Therefore, we only have access to her thoughts and perspective on both what she experienced as a child and afterwards: “Ermine! I saw queens and princes floating by, alighting on a mist-wreathed boat…” (l. 24); “I felt pricking in my eyes, ...