“I conquered myself” (Meagan Adler)

After finishing the analytically complex and paradoxical novel, I think that we can place psychological significance on the conflict between internal and external forces as well as the relation of Maslow’s hierarchy that defines the convolutedly methodical narrator.  I feel as if the narrator painfully accepts that he is a “product of the brain” (pg.89) and that the internal force of his mind controls him; furthermore, he feels such satisfaction when he feels like he is the tyrannical “master” (pg.79) over Liza because he feels in control of something.  Although the narrator claims that he is “incapable” (pg.88) of love, I believe that he has convinced himself so because he momentarily allowed himself to love Liza, self-actualized and “could hardly breathe” (pg.88) when he saw who he was in the real world;  he expresses, “I conquered myself” (pg.87) in that he was the “nastiest, stupidest, absurdist and most envious of all the worms on earth” (pg.86).  Being disgusted with who he is, I believe the narrator convinces himself that he is incapable of loving, reverts back to being stuck at the love/belongingness stage of Maslow’s hierarchy and seeks refuge in his “underground world” (pg.90), where he is safely “divorced from life” (pg.90).