“How Old Timofei Died With A Song” Analysis In Rike’s short story, “How Old Timofei Died With A Song” the story is told from the point of view of first person. Even though you never really know who the narrator is, the narrator tells you about how they enjoy telling stories to paralyzed people then goes on to tell a story about a man, Timofei who is the greatest singer of songs that is passed down from generation to generation. Timofei’s son leaves him to marry a peasant girl and when he does Timofei can no longer sing because he is so overwhelmed with grief. The son finally comes back, leaving his family, when he finds out how sick his father is, and there his father teaches him all of the songs he knows until he passes. Once Timofei passed, the son went out through the villages singing the songs with a tone that no one else has ever had. The narrator and the paralyzed man hint that maybe it was because he was so lonely, and died alone. Even though the point of view is first person, by the narrator telling a story it almost turns into limited omniscient, which the author probably did because it gives the story an interesting twist. By the author making the narrator switch point of views in the story it gives it a different feel, but is needed because it helps you understand the story that the narrator is telling more. If Rike wrote the story without the narrator telling it to the paralyzed man then you would never have the ending, “’So he didn’t learn that tone from his father?’ my friend Edwald asked after a while. ‘No,’ I replied, “no one knows where he got it from.’ After I had already stepped away from the window, the paralyzed man made another gesture and called after me: ‘Perhaps he was thinking about his wife and child. Besides, did he never send for them, seeing that his father was now dead?’ ‘No, I don’t think so. At any rate, when he died afterward