Point of View

Malicroix is written in the first-person point of view from the perspective of its protagonist and narrator, Martial Megremut, although his name is scarcely used throughout. The time of the narration takes place at an unspecified time after the events of the narrative occur. Thus Martial is narrating his experiences not as they are happening, but as they happened in the past. As a result, the narration of Malicroix is framed as an act of memory and recollection from Martial. Martial himself states: “I have tried, as faithfully as possible, to recapture and reconstruct my recollections. But a memory scorched by fever does not offer a precise guarantee of the past” (168). As this quote also suggests, Martial is unreliable as a narrator. Of the many observations of sights and sounds that Martial reports, it is never clear whether they truly occur or whether they are...