Sometimes it almost seems as if James actually relishes his … stuckness, even though it keeps him angry—at those impersonal forces and trends, at his parents, at women, and (at a deeper and less obvious level) at himself. The beatings his father used to give him had powerful, subterranean effects over the shape of James’ life. It turned dad into a terrifying, unpredictable menace, a force beyond James’ control that would inflict pain as a punishment for mysterious, ill-defined transgressions.
This led James to begin hating his father and fantasizing at a semi-conscious level about murdering him. But it also led James to conclude those punishments must somehow be deserved. Why else would his father have inflicted them, and his mother done nothing to protect him from them? James also came to believe at a deep level he barely permits himself to acknowledge that his own murderous, vengeful feelings toward his father confirm his own unworthiness of success and love.
As a result of all this, James lives out his young life under a shadow of intense self-loathing that manifests itself in the anger he directs outward and in self-subversive behavior that guarantees he will achieve little in life. As he ages, this failure will make him angrier, while also confirming that he’s been right all along to believe he is unworthy of doing better.
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