The Ultimate Safari

The nine-year-old narrator of “The Ultimate Safari” remains unnamed and is never described throughout the story. She does not use colloquial phrases or slang but communicates in stark, simple language. The intentional omission of these details allows the reader to picture any young girl as the narrator of this tale. She is the universal image of innocence and doubles as a symbol of innocence under attack. She is moral, kind, honest, and sincere but also naive, vulnerable, and unskilled. The girl is at an age at which she is old enough to be aware of her surroundings and events unfolding around her but not old enough to understand the forces that created them. As such, she is a somewhat unreliable narrator for the story, as she can deliver no context, analysis, or opinion on the war.

The girl narrates her experience without emotion and without describing her opinions on what transpires. She does not understand what is happening and notes that she only knows she is hungry, scared, or alone. It is not until the final paragraph that the girl expresses an opinion, a unique thought, or an idea of force: that she believed that she would return to her home and family after the war.