After the First Death

Evidence in the novel After the First Death shows that, although at first it seems as though Ben is narrating, it is in fact General Marchand, Ben’s father, who is narrating the story. One of the first and, in my opinion, the most intriguing of the clues leading to this conclusion I have made is when Ben’s mother calls him by his father’s name. Normally a slip like this would be easily ignored and quite normal considering everybody makes mistakes, but Cormier made it quite clear when he added several sentences explaining that Ben’s mother never mixes their names up and that it was nearly impossible that she had accidentally done so.

The second most intriguing clue is the final Ben-Father chapter. Ben’s father is having a conversation between himself and the Ben that still lives deep inside of him:
Ben: But I was always here. Didn’t you know that, Dad?
Father: Sometimes I thought you were.
Ben: You just didn’t look hard enough or deep enough.

This shows that Ben wasn’t really alive and could therefore be incapable of telling the story from his point of view. This explains the clue from the first paragraph. Ben’s mother had called him by his father’s name because it was really his father doing the narrating.

Another intriguing clue supporting this conclusion is when the “doctor” is said to look like an old college teacher of Ben’s father. If it really were Ben narrating and he really was attending college, why would there be a doctor? This is really, in my opinion, Ben’s father in a mental ward, not Ben attending the same college his father attended. This would explain why there’s a doctor and why he mentions taking pills.

This is the evidence I chose to support that Ben was in fact not narrating the story and it was truly his father speaking from his son’s point of view because he is mentally ill from sacrificing his son for his country.