Narrator and point of view

The events described in the short story “Terminal” by Nadine Gordimer are told by a third-person narrator, who is limited to the woman. 

The narrative follows the woman and provides an insight into her thoughts and feelings regarding her terminal illness. From the first lines, readers find out that the woman is unhappy and deeply affected by her illness, which makes her feel less than an animal: “ ‘Even the cat buries its dirt; I carry mine around with me.’ ” (p. 142, l. 1).

Throughout the narrative, the woman keeps recalling the moment when she first read about colostomy bags: “She remembered that morning, that newspaper, clearly. More and more of their conversation kept coming back” (p. 142, ll. 12-13). For her, reading about the colostomy bags and “laughing in bed on a Sunday morning”...