Indledning
It's fascinating how so many different emotions we can feel and how some, like guilt, can affect our lives.

Hilary Taylor's short story "Defense at Sea" (2018) is a funny story that focuses on how guilt affects life. We got to know this guy named Michael and what it was not his fault he had a lot of guilt.

The story begins with a media source, Michael at the police station: "I'm at the police station. Again." (l. 1).

It tells us that this is not the first time he's come to the police station, so we know what happened, but not what happened.

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Uddrag
Because of the narrator’s mental illness, he is not totally reliable. His childish behavior gives him a naive perspective of the world and only a little understanding of society.

He does not understand the way people think of him: “Mostly people call the police. (..)

Harmless, one of them will say, and then another will say wouldn’t want him near my kids, and someone else says locked up.”

(ll. 39-41) and therefore when the police ask about his job, he does not understand why the parents could be concerned about their children when he is present.

Overall, he is not aware of the social norms and consequences. The narrator’s unreliability is also shown when he only gives us small pieces of the events bit by bit and only in the end, he gives us the details about what happened with Hannah.