In class, we discussed the identity of the speaker. Who is he, and how can we characterize him? To me, he seems like something of an empty slate who not only records his experiences with the natives, but is also mapped, himself, in the process. Saer describes the speaker’s shocking moment of self-reflection after his companions have been killed and are being prepared by the cooks. The speaker admits that, at first, he felt a strong desire to engage in cannibalism with the natives. He explains, “almost against my will, however hard I tried to swallow my saliva, something else, something stronger than repugnance or fear, persisted in making my mouth water” (46). Though he cannot identify the origin of these desires, the witness seems to be pulled by the same larger force driving the natives to participate in the act of eating the captives. Thus, there seems to be an element of fluidity to the character of the witness; though he does not understand many of the practices of the natives, his observance of them is not solely passive. It becomes clear that his position as a witness of the natives’ experiences alters the speaker when he comes face to face with members of the Old World for the first time since reaching the island. The speaker tries to explain to the European men he encounters what had happened to him, but he “eventually [realizes] that [he] [is] talking to them in the language of the Indians” (95). When he attempts to shift back to his “mother tongue,” he finds he has forgotten it (95). It is in his first moment of contact with his cultural past that we can see the ways in which the process of “witnessing” remaps the speaker’s identity.