First-Person Fiction

In “All Aunt Hagar’s Children” the narrator starts off alone in his office thinking about the only women he has ever seen die. He states that he can’t keep her last words out of his head. He was in the military and had seen a lot of men die, but for some reason seeing a woman die hit a soft spot in him. Maybe because he was raised around so many women. Miss Agatha, his mother, and one other lady came by to ask him to help Miss Agatha find out who killed her son. The narrator wasn’t happy about helping at first because he wanted to move away to Alaska to find gold. He was wanting to escape something from his hometown, maybe it was his ex or the lady that had died in his arms. I think the narrator is wanting to take on this detective role in helping Miss Agatha because he wasn’t able to help the white women that he saw die. This was another chance for him to help someone hoping to succeed this time. He felt he had failed the white lady in letting her die and also possibly his ex that he keeps trying to stay away from. Finding the person that killed Miss Agatha’s son would give him and her relief of the place they were living. It also made him feel like he could be a hero and that she really trusted him, as she couldn’t trust the police. The narrator didn’t change much in the story, he just got more caught up in the detective role. We find out that even though this seems to be happening right now, that this is actually a story looking back in time. The narrator never goes to Alaska and doesn’t get much reassurance on Miss Agatha’s son. But he did have a soft spot for helping Miss Agatha.