Big Me Character Analysis

In Dan Chaon’s “Big Me”, the main character is living in an abusive household. The reason he crafted an imaginary city, became obsessed with the idea of his future self, and then later began having blackouts is due to him subconsciously developing coping methods to deal with his parents’ behavior.

At the beginning of the story, the Narrator has been playing Detective in a city of his imagining for years. Unlike the real town he lives in, the Narrator’s city is a sprawling metropolis, where everyone in his real life has a secret role. His parents, for example, “...were well-meaning but unimaginative people, and I was polite to them”, and his brother, Mark, “...was the district attorney, my nemesis” (p. 52). These roles have significance, in

“In my mind, they seemed happy together, in the bantering, ironic manner of sitcom couples, and their arguments seemed full of comedy, as if a laugh track might ring out after their best put-down lines.” (p.54). It’s all a part of an elaborate fantasy he’s created in order to ignore reality. There are also times in the story where the Narrator’s doesn't comprehend the situation--at one point he describes his mother’s drunkenness, “She looked sad, and for a moment lost her balance slightly as she reached down to run a palm across my cheek” (p.59-60). Whether his lack of comprehension is because of his youth, or intentional is unknown. His relationship with his brother is also indicative of a troubled youth. In the imaginary city, the Narrator’s brother is his “nemesis”. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue--there’s nothing strange about sibling rivalry, however, in this case the Narrator never really grows out of it. He doesn’t actively hate his brother, but he does seem to carry a certain amount of disdain for him. When describing how their family went in

Mickleson is a lonely, quiet man who is often drunk. The narrator’s father describes him as a “weirdo” more than once. Earlier in the story the Narrator states, “Sometimes I think: If no one knows you, then you are no one” (p. 52). This goes in line with the Narrator’s fear of becoming Mickleson, a man with no family, not even a wife, and no friends to be seen.Faced with the idea of this as his future, the Narrator becomes obsessed with changing. He appears to have succeeded: at the present time where the story is being told, the Narrator appears to live a satisfactory life with a decent job and a family. He seems to have successfully avoided the future, he was so afraid of as a child. Yet, there are cracks in this facade. “Everything is green and full of sunlight, and I might as well be watching an actor portraying me in the happy ending of a movie of my life” (p. 71). The Narrator has become so used to playing a part--whether he’s acting the Detective in the imaginary city or as a son in a contented, normal family--that he can’t stop doing it. So as an adult, he crafted a perfect family, and the only remainder of his childhood is the blackouts. The blackouts begin once the Narrator goes into Mickleson’s house for the first time and continue to the current day. He fears them at first, afraid they’re being caused by a brain tumor, but he learns to normalize the blackouts as well, describing them