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

girlfriend’s, Short Hills. When he meets Brenda, he becomes attracted to both her beauty and her decorum. She lives in the affluent suburb of Short Hills, representing a different and better world, a world Neil dreams of. As someone from a lower middle-class background, his workplace is the definition of what he does not want to become in the future. The library where he works, is a disappointing place in life because he does not want to identify with the “strange fellows” working there (33). He is also afraid that he will end up being a librarian whose life will become a “numbness” and a “muscleless devotion to his work” (33). Because he is always aware of his imperfections, Neil establishes a distance between himself and his colleagues and wants to be able to define himself as someone who is against how they portray themselves; racist white males. He realizes that their ignorance and intolerance stem from simple-mindedness and he wants to stay separate from them so he will not eventually become like them.
Neil’s colleagues’ belief about black people on the Negro side of Newark, are projected onto the little black boy who regularly comes to the library.

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

life.
The little black boy is depicted as Neil’s double in the story because he sympathizes with Neil’s character. Although there is a connection between both wanting a better living life, Neil does not want to fully detach himself from a lower-class background. If he did, he would not identify with the little boy the way he does. Not to mention, the little boy might even be his motivation to fight for something that appears to be unreachable or might be easily taken away from him. For example, Neil has a dream, where he and the little boy are on a ship, sailing away from the shore, separated from the world they want to belong to but nothing they do can keep them in it. “the Negresses moved slowly down to the shore and began to throw leis at us and say ‘Goodbye, Columbus… goodbye Columbus… goodbye’ and though we did not want to go…the boat was moving and there was nothing we could do about it” (74).
We become evident of all this because the little black boy does not come back to the library.

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,

poorer.
Neil Klugman’s character is shown as a young man unfulfilled with his life. He hopes he could escape the shortcomings of his lower-middle-class existence. When he meets a little black boy in his workplace of the library, he feels a sense of understanding between the two of them. Neil and the little black boy have a bond that links them to a life of a lower-class American but also as people who want a better life than they have now. Although they use the Gauguin’s paintings as motivation for a better America, Neil knows that not everything is black and white. Just like how his lower-middle-class life is not what he really wants to be a part of anymore, the life of a wealthy superficial upper-class American is not where be belongs.