“they made her a grave, too cold and damp for a soul so warm and true; and she’s gone to the lake of the dismal swamp, where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp, she paddles her white canoe.

the narrator is a first person, participant one, who describes in the simple past tense important and difficult events in his earlier life. he also provides temporal markers as the month (january) and the time (12: 30 pm). finally the account of his experience is very detailed, to the extent that a participant narrator would talk the same way about his experiences. a good example of such detail is the mention of the “bovril ration” which historically was a native american food adopted by european explorers in arctic and antarctic regions due to its high level of calories.