This is supported when the narrator states that "the disappearance of one old elephant and one old elephant keeper would have no impact on the course of society interest in a missing elephant could not last forever" (459). The naturalization of something that is unnatural is one of the very definitions of magical realism, which is, to make the magical appear as part of an everyday life.
Now comes the narrator, from whose perspective the story is being told. It is evident that he seems to be obsessed with the elephant and its keeper. This obsession could be something much more than the town's appreciation of the elephant. Because he had his "own private interest in the elephant problem from the very onset, and [I] kept a scrapbook with every clipping [I] could find on it," he becomes a reliable narrator for the story prior to the incident (454). This dedication to the elephant did not stop as he has a habit of watching the elephant when it was inside its house from a "cliff behind the elephant houseon the back of the hill where you can see into the elephant house" until they both finally disappeared (462). This is primarily the reason why he was greatly bothered, as he believes he was the last one to see the elephant and its keeper before the incident happened.
One can infer that the narrator's obsession to the elephant-keeper tandem is due to the dynamics of their relationship to which he tries to rationalize. It is said that he would drop by the elephant house during weekends to study how their relationship works even if he could never comprehend where the communication is based. He even reached the point when he asked the keeper about it, to which the latter only answered, "we've been together a long time" (456). Moreover, the narrator is struck by the display of affection between the elephant and the keeper, which is something that they do not publicly show.
