Point of View

Told from the first-person ("I") point of view of the unnamed narrator, this story remains very close to the action. The narrator offers his immediate reactions to the events of his day and little background information. The narrator of "My First Goose" withholds information from the reader, who learns only what the narrator wants to reveal— in this case, a limited amount of information. He tells that he attended law school and can read and write, and of what his job consists. He does not state whether he is Jewish or Christian. The narrator does not say exactly why he admires the Cossacks, though he does comment several times on their physical beauty. This kind of ambiguous narrator often appears in Babel's stories, particularly those included in Red Cavalry. Critics often point out that even in his own diaries, Babel did not always tell the whole...