“But what is to be done if the direct and sole vocation of every intelligent man is babble, that is, the intentionally pouring of water through a sieve?” (pg.12) (Meagan Adler)

After tonight’s reading, I found myself analytically captivated as I constantly tried to dissect the idiosyncratic narrator as he convolutedly unveiled himself through the “fever of oscillations” (pg.7) that define his “acute” (pg.6) and inescapable consciousness.  I feel as if in painfully breaking down every detail to a point where it is subject to “chemical disintegration” (pg.12), the narrator is incapable of seeing the bigger and clearer picture.  A particularly interesting part of tonight’s reading was the narrator’s metaphorical comparison of himself to a mouse even though “no one asks him to do so” (pg.7); in my opinion, the narrator is unable to socially cope with society and unable to relate to anyone to a point where his doubts force him into his “underground home” (pg.7).  He furthermore explains that by seeking revenge it is the mouse that will suffer “a hundred times more than he on whom it revenges itself” (pg.7).  I was also intrigued by the constant reference to the “stone wall” (pg.8) and its comparison to the inevitability of the overpowering force of nature.  Is the narrator blocked by his own stone wall that forbids him from escaping his unrelenting conscious mind?