Narrator and point of view

The events in the short story “The Jam Maker” by Huma Qureshi are told from the point of view of a first-person narrator, who is also the main character. Overall, the narrator’s account seems to be influenced by her inability to let go of the past, as well as by her guilt. 

The narrator is now an adult, who looks back on a significant event from her childhood. Therefore, her narration is told in retrospect. This means that the narrator understands more than her childhood self. For example, the child narrator believed she could integrate herself and become truly British, while the adult narrator confesses that she is not sure she really belongs in the British village where she lives now.

There are times when the narrator offers a detailed insight into her thoughts and feelings from when she was a child:

I liked our quiet village and its tidy row of stores on the main street and its stone cottages and the mere and the green and th...