Narrator and point of view

The short story “The Highest Branch on the Tree” by Ray Bradbury is a first-person account. The narrator is also a character in the story, a writer named Douglas Spaulding.

At the time of the narration, the storyteller is already a middle-aged man who knows how the events unfold as indicated by the use of the past-tense (the story is told in retrospect, using flashback).

However, the narrator assumes a limited-knowledge perspective. For example, he believed Harry was good at sports in high school until he finds out 40 years later that he actually cheated in gym class: “ ‘ I never ran the laps. After the first two I hid behind a parked car…’ ” (ll. 167-168)

Also, when Harry disappears in the ninth grade, the narrator does not know what happened to him. He only ...