Character Clues

Character Analysis

Direct

Eggers has no problem telling it like it is. He pulls zero punches, even when it comes to characterizing his protagonist in the harshest terms:

He could not pay for her tuition because he had made a series of foolish decisions in his life. He had not planned well. He had not had courage when he needed it. (I.6.4).

This isn't Eggers being too hard on his protagonist. He's just being fair and telling it like it is—he uses this direct style of characterization to tell us that there are, just possibly, some mitigating circumstances that explain Alan's terrible position at this time.

Sex and Love

Eggers helps us to understand the complicated mess of Alan's life by letting us in on his most intimate thoughts, about some very intimate things. As Alan tries to get into the bathtub situation with Hanne, he can't help but think how futile and silly it all is:

We had buttons, we had circuits, and it could all be mapped and explained, reprogrammed and calibrated. The utter mechanical simplicity of being able to move this oddity, the clitoris, up and down and around, to provoke the greatest pleasure, seemed laughably easy. (XXII.115.190-191)

The "easiness" of sexual arousal makes Alan feel that he's nothing more than a robot—or a worker on an assembly line. (At least, in terms of Hanne's arousal. His own arousal is far more complicated and harder to achieve.)

Alan's difficult relationship with human sexuality is yet another sign that he feels isolated and disconnected from the rest of humanity. It's certainly linked to a kind of deadness that he feels inside, especially regarding things that give him pleasure (sexual or not).