Fancy Pants Rhetorical Analysis

The main goal of personality psychologists is to determine why people think, feel, and act in the ways they do. This essay will commit to the psychoanalysis of Fancy Pants, through her own self-analytical essay. Fancy Pants suffers from deep insecurities about herself and her personality, and her psyche combats this with a need for power. Fancy Pants demonstrates fierce narcissism, thinking she possesses more intellectual and emotional depth than her peers; however, she is highly neurotic, and this comes through in her inability to be vulnerable in an anonymous essay.

Fancy Pants seems to have a heightened level of insight, and she genuinely prides herself on this talent. She enjoys thinking about and observing patterns in herself and

those around her; however, this gives her a haughty air and highlights her narcissistic trait. She craves power, writing, “I enjoy resistance,” and places herself above others without much notice. Fancy Pants assumes that the majority of people whom she encounters are below her level of intellect, and that she is always the best dressed. While the author claims that makes her depressed, because she struggles to find others to bond with at the same intellectual and analytical level, I feel that if she ever did, she would avoid those same individuals because they would threaten the self-image she treasures and holds so high. I feel like this “depression” is also an excuse to withdraw from society. Scoring the highest for neuroticism on the BFAS personality test, with volatility and withdrawal a close second and fourth, it seems very possible that Fancy Pants holds herself back a lot because of how she views herself as a human being. She already assumes that there are not many people she can get along with, because it is uncommon for her to find people who are at her level intellectually. It also probably does not help that she received the scores of 18.61 for agreeableness, 19.58 for compassion, and 11.98 for politeness.

In the second paragraph, the author describes her “heightened awareness of [her] own tendencies in comparison to [her] peers.” However, the immature nature of her prose—as evidenced by her unsophisticated word choice, multiple grammatical errors, and unprofessional writing style—would suggest that this is not the case.

Fancy Pants’ narcissism is also clear in her lack of self-awareness, leading to an inability to recognize that her experience is not a unique one. She claims to “make the ordinary significant.” She suggests that she is better or different than most people without proving it; “I long for… the collector to my good taste”; “I am…really very smart”; “I have the right stuff.”

It is nice that the author strongly promotes self-love and acceptance; there is a clear connection present from her father openly speaking on his self-hatred and Fancy Pants’ love of resistance. On some level, the author recognizes that the way her father treated himself is not healthy. Because of this, she aggressively works to be different, making “not fitting in [her] niche.” That is a lovely and completely natural response, and an entirely necessary part of

maturing.

She experiences things that would make any person insecure, writing, “I really have never fit in,” and “I often have to combat destructively negative self-talk.” However, it seems that her way of dealing with her insecurity is an attempt to ‘fake it ‘til she makes it’, in that she feels the need to prove how amazing she is instead of analyzing her experiences and the complex parts of her that actually determine her person. I believe that her not only ‘best face forward’ but ‘best face only’ approach to describing herself is an example of how she feels that she needs to mask her imperfections, as a result of her insecurities. Fancy Pants needs to learn that it is okay to be flawed, and that revealing imperfections can be a source of strength.

She has forced herself to be personable and lively in social settings due to her intense insecurities, rooting back to her father’s constant negative words and to her feeling like she never belonged.

She was able to turn the isolation around and pride herself on it, taking it in as part of her personality, but that is a very early step in the process of fully coming to accept yourself and letting others in. She speaks repeatedly of her self-love; however, she also reveals that she feels like an actress in everyday life. There is so much evidence of deep-rooted insecurities written between the lines of her essay, but it seems she is too afraid to reveal these truths to herself, despite her “heightened awareness of her own tendencies.” Lying to oneself is the easiest and most natural thing in the

world.

Fancy Pants finds the greatest lessons in nature. This is likely due to her levels of insecurity. She is constantly redefining herself and her values, and that is because after she made being socially un-accepted her niche, she never took the time or let others in enough to be truly comfortable with herself. She speaks volumes about her self-love, but sincerely has no clue who she really is, writing in clichés that are at times contradictory. In nature, though, she is completely alone, and she appreciates the raw beauty of the world that much more because of it. She does not have to put on a façade for herself or anyone else, because trees do not socially pressure you. She finds comfort there because she sees all around her that authenticity can be beautiful.

It is important to note that, while this essay may be a harsh critique of Fancy Pants, she clearly demonstrates an undeniable inner strength to overcome her difficult experiences. It is visible that while she describes herself, she attempts to prove herself, and she succeeds in proving that she is “determined to live life on [her] own terms” and “loves to fight.”

Fancy Pants clearly exemplifies the ABCs used in personality psychology: affect, behaviour, and cognition. Her father’s harmful words have lasting effects on her psyche (affect) as she notices the same verbally self-destructive tendencies in herself (behaviour), and she communicated to the reader her concern for her father’s “attitude toward himself” as he ages (cognition).

The narcissistic trait that Fancy Pants has is a result of her need for power. Behaviour is the function of a person and their environment, and we see this in Fancy Pants’ relationship with her father. As a result of his negative stream of consciousness self-loathing that Fancy Pants was exposed to growing up, her psyche was affected, which the author conveys to the reader, stating, “I often have to combat destructively negative self-talk…”, in reference to the impact of her father’s tendencies. However, here, Fancy Pants’ need for power and love of resistance saved her, because she is motivated to not succumb to the same weaknesses as her father. She tries to “appreciate the ordinary moments” in life—along with the extraordinary—and I see this as a way of trying to find beauty in everything and remind herself that it is okay to be happy, mentally behaving in an optimistic manner.