commentary!

The main character is obviously out of context about his setting; and his entire life. After the nuclear bomb, his entire life is all but a blur; like some crazed drugged out hippie straight out of San Francisco in the late 1960's. He can slightly recall what has happened, but he has no true recollection of what has happened to him. In the story, the main character explains how long he has lived; claiming his roots stemmed from the African continent, but any civilized human being would know that man originated from the African Continent. "Then the plants showed up, which made a nice change" is a quote that I perceive as him further perpetuating his own denial of everything that has happened to him; as well as the "Ice Age" that he has endured. The "Ice Age" was just the dramatic climate change that occurred following the nuclear bomb that devistated his world. "They all got old and died, like my pets" details how the other survivors around him were dying from the radiation that followed after the bomb was set off. The weather just kept getting hotter and hotter as time progressed, which caused the other survivors to worship and welcome night-time, when the temperature would be milder. I'm not sure where the Tokyo reference comes from, but I have an idea that the author felt the need to mention the travesties that occurred at Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the USA dropped the A-bomb on those establishments to give the reader a picture of what happened to him; to empathize with the survivors of those tragedies. The main character continues his out of context thinking when he believes he is living in the Middle East; the birthplace of civilization. How fitting that at the end of civilization, he pictures himself at the birthplace of it all. The main character is so out of touch with reality that he falls in love with his own domesticated elephant; a far-fetched notion, but if you're lonely in this world, i suppose any type of lofe from something else would be sufficient for him. In the end of the story, we can see what the main character truly is; "Sometimes I have this weird idea that I am just a second-rate New Zealand schoolmaster who never did anything or went anywhere." We see from this "flashback" what his life really was before the devastating nuclear bomb. We also see that he's blocked out those memories to create a fantasy life in which he can truly accept after the loss and everything that was so dear to him.