For much of the novel, the narrator struggles to figure out who he really is. He’s created a persona on campus, complete with stereotypical literary affectations. However, in large part because he wants to escape this persona, he chooses to go to a college that none of his classmates will be attending.

After he is expelled and his scholarship offer rescinded, he works various blue-collar jobs in New York and then joins the military. Still, his sense of self is entwined with the notion that he’s a writer. When he was younger, this notion was interwoven with romantic ideals and bookish affect. However, when he later becomes a successful writer, the narrator notes:

A more truthful dust-jacket sketch would say that the author, after much floundering, went to college and worked like the drones he’d once despised, kept reasonable hours, learned to be alone in a room, learned to throw stuff out, learned to keep gnawing at the same bone until it cracked (156).

Through his persistent actions and productivity, the narrator now carries the identity, rather than the persona, of a writer.