Am I a Monster or Is This What It Means to Be Human
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The Hr of the Star Identity
Identity
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Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to exist a person? (1.17)
This is hands down ane of the coolest lines in the volume. Information technology speaks to that hole-and-corner fear that we all have that we're really not like other people at all—that all our bad thoughts and feelings make us into something subhuman or monstrous. Or, you know, mayhap that'southward just united states.
For the question 'Who am I?' creates a demand. And how does one satisfy the need? To probe oneself is to recognize that ane is incomplete. (1.eighteen)
The thing about asking questions is that, if you take to ask, you know that there's something (like a clear respond) missing. But does the reply even be? If we're just going by this book, we'd have to go with no.
The dark, tarnished mirror scarcely reflected whatever image. Perhaps her concrete being had vanished? This illusion shortly passed and she saw her entire face distorted by the tarnished mirror; her nose had grown as huge as those false noses made of paper mâché donned by circus clowns. She studied herself and mused: so immature and yet and so tarnished. (3.fifty)
And so, this is basically the feel you have when y'all look in a fun firm mirror and encounter yourself all distorted. But we have to ask: since we already know that Macabéa never thinks about herself, how could she possibly retrieve that she looks "tarnished"? We're starting to doubtable that the narrator is putting a lot of words into her mouth.
Only once did she ask herself that traumatic question: Who am I? The question frightened her to such an extent that her mind became paralyzed. (3.75)
Well, no wonder she becomes paralyzed: this is a question that'south basically impossible to answer. Macabéa's reaction highlights how traumatic this question tin can be, especially if we're surprised by the answer nosotros give ourselves.
The typist lived in a kind of limbo, hovering betwixt heaven and hell. She had never given any idea to the concept: "I am, therefore, I am." I doubtable that she felt she had no right to do so, being a mere accident of nature. (3.92)
To live in limbo is to be between states, like stuck in a doorway or trapped in an elevator, or halfway betwixt being alive and expressionless. Which, if you think about, sums upwards Macabéa's being pretty neatly—and depressingly.
Forgive me, just I don't believe that I am all that human. (4.164)
If Macabéa feels herself to exist something other than human, then nosotros have to ask what it might hateful to be man. Does she demand to belong to the world? To think about herself? To have self-awareness?
She did not think about herself: she lacked cocky-sensation. (4.353)
Forget cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am"); this is non cogito ergo non sum ("I practise non recollect, therefore I am not." Or, yous know, something forth those lines. Our Latin's a piddling rusty.) If you lot are not aware of yourself, do y'all be? If others are non aware of yous, do y'all be? It's awful to retrieve about—but, at the aforementioned time, there seems to be a connection betwixt this inner emptiness and the affluence of grace that Macabéa attains.
If she was no longer herself, this signified a loss that counted equally a gain. (5.416)
Afterwards Macabéa visits the fortuneteller, she is full of hope about her future, and she feels like a new person, so she is no longer her sometime self. This is Macabéa 2.0: better, hope-ier, and, sadly, not long for the world.
Meanwhile, Macabéa, lying on the footing, seemed to get more and more transformed into a Macabéa, equally if she were arriving at herself. (5.432)
So, perchance Macabéa really is becoming more and more herself—only we take to remember that this is a story told by our narrator, who tells it from his perspective and from his own search for the pregnant of life. Maybe Macabéa is really but becoming Macabéa for him, and she still feels every bit lost as ever.
She clung to a thread of consciousness and mentally repeated over and over again: I am, I am, I am. Precisely who she was, she was unable to say. (v.440)
Yous'd recall that dying would be a process of unbecoming, just instead it seem like Macabéa is trying to get something in death. The repetition of "I am" emphasizes that decease is giving her a new opportunity to exist fully herself—and nevertheless she can't even terminate the judgement.
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Source: https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/hour-of-the-star/quotes/identity
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