Neil Klugman Identity

Neil Klugman is a character who struggles to develop and preserve an identity of his own among different environments and conflicting impulses within himself. As a modern, intellectual living in the conservative American society of the 1950s, he identifies with a set of analytical values that brings him into conflict with the world around him. As a librarian, he takes an assimilationist approach to American culture, which leads him to share similarities with a little black boy that comes to the library. Neil and the little black boy have this bond connecting them to a life of a lower-class American; someone who is an outsider in society. Neil tries to define his own identity mainly in relationship to his hometown of Newark to the town of his

For example, when the boy comes into the library, the guard at the door tells him to make less noise with his shoes (33). If it were anyone else, if it were a little white boy, no words would have been shed onto him. Also, when Neil’s co-worker finds out the little black boy is in the library, he immediately wants to kick him out saying things like, “Someone should check on him… You know the way they treat the housing projects we give them…I’m going to call Mr. Scapello’s office to check the Art Section.” (35). Neil begins to identify with the boy, who comes to the library to look at a book of Gauguin’s pictures of Tahiti. This little boy is obviously interested in art but we know that his family does not understand this. This is the reason why he does not take the Gauguin book out of the library; he knows that “at home somebody will dee-stroy it” (60). You can tell that Neil has a connection to the little black boy because he defends him against his co-workers and understands his reasoning for not wanting to check the book out. Neil and the little black boy are envious of a better American

This compels Neil to believe that either something happened to him or the boy finally realized that he will always be different and there was no point in dreaming of a place he will never be able to go, which is why Neil says, “No sense carrying dreams of Tahiti in your head, if you can’t afford the fare” (120). This changes Neil’s perspective on how he wants to live his life. He may have wanted to be in the same social class as that of his girlfriend Brenda, but, after seeing how stuck up and superficial her family really is, he sees them in a negative light. For example, Neil spends the weekend at Brenda’s home which upsets her mother, Mrs. Patimkin. She gets into an argument with her daughter and says to her, “This is not the Salvation Army!” (64). In some way, this builds another bond between Neil and the little black boy. Just like how the little boy was treated for being a black boy in the library, that’s how Neil is treated; he is lower than they are,