Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?
First Person (Central Narrator)
This is Chester's story, 100%. He's our hero and our narrator—we get front-row seats to The Chester Show.
Code Talker is narrated by Chester, who is a key player in the development and the use of the secret Navajo code used to defeat the Japanese in the Pacific islands during World War II. As such, Chester is in the thick of things from the beginning, and so he can give us readers an inside view not only into the development of the code, but also into how it was used in the war against the Japanese.
For example, Chester fills us in on the early days of the development of the code. He tells us about how he and twenty-eight other Navajo Marines are locked into a room by Marine commanders and assigned the task of developing the code. He tells us:
On that first day, we decided to use an English word […] to represent each letter of the English alphabet. Those words would then be translated into Navajo, and the Navajo word would represent the English letter. (10.13)
Chester's first-person narration not only gives us insight into how the code was developed, it also gives us access to the grisly world of battle. Describing his landing on the island of Guadalcanal, Chester tells us about how:
Japanese artillery shells exploded around us. Noise roared, continuous, like the clamor of an enraged crowd. Sharp punctuations—individual explosions—added to the din. (1.60)
Through his first-person narration, in other words, we get a first-hand understanding of the war.