Pain

The author explores the ways in which unresolved pain and trauma impact the human psyche via Pointer's former photojournalism career and his time at Hotel Dahoma. At the start of the short story, the narrator says that Pointer is staying in Unguja at the behest of his sons, who "had expressed concern about his moping around the Somerset cottage" (262). Despite this early allusion to Pointer's life in the narrative present, the narrator immediately diverts her attention from Pointer's uncomfortable circumstances and towards his former life as a journalist. The narrator's attentive descriptions of Pointer's former job illustrate how desperately Pointer still wants to identify as the emotionally unaffected conflict journalist he once was. While having dinner with Ned and Nicola, the narrator says that the young people "wanted to talk about [Pointer's] work—people always did. But beyond specific anecdotes, it was hard to know what...