Fourth Reaction

Tonight’s reading takes up a story-like approach in addressing how the narrator interacts with his old classmates; the dialogue was a nice change, but the most intriguing aspect was seeing how other people reacted to him. Upon first seeing them, the narrator expects a greeting but when he receives none, he feels dejected and miserable. To me, this only proved his desire to be validated and the fact that, despite his insults and low opinions of them, the narrator still hoped things had changed. His call for attention by inviting himself to dinner struck me as incredibly awkward, but also as another expression of his insecurity; he constantly feels the need to be noticed, even in the most complicated of situations. In fact, he also always wavers between his feelings; this was extremely apparent in the dinner scene. When his classmates try to engage him in conversation, the narrator answers hostilely, but when they don’t bother him, he hugs over being ignored, another testament to his incredibly fickle nature.