I Am a Fool by Sherwood Anderson - Essay Example

The narrator has matured into a fine young man. Telling the story from the first-person point of view, Anderson allows the readers to experience the young man’s self-perception of his action. At the very beginning, the readers come to know that the narrator has already grown into maturity, as he tells, “It was a hard jolt for me, one of the bitterest I ever had to face. And it all came about through my foolishness too.” (356) This self-judgmental approach ultimately establishes the narrator’s integrity.

The readers realize that the narrator describes the events of his life in retrospect. The narrator tells about his compunction as follows: “Even yet sometimes, when I think of it, I want to cry or swear or kick myself.” (354) Immediately after telling it, he also says that his only motivation behind narrating the story is to get relief from mental agony, as he says, “Perhaps, even now, after all this time, there will be a kind of satisfaction in making myself look cheap by telling of it” (356). Thus, the readers perceive the reliability of the narrator. Indeed, the first-person point of view allows the readers to understand what is going on in the narrator’s mind. Since in the very beginning of the story, the narrator makes it clear to his readers that he is going to tell something negative about himself, his credibility is further fortified by such self-negation.

But the problem arises from the narrator’s dual stance about the truth and reality. On the whole, he remains dishonest and deceptive toward others around him. Even he is deceptive to himself. He disparages education and values his job as a horse swipe. Again, he comments about the educated people as follows: “Such fellows don't know nothing at all. They've never had any opportunity.” (357) Another dishonesty that the narrator tells in the story without being ashamed the least is his deception to his girlfriend, Lucy Wessen. He assumes a fake identity and appearance to win Lucy’s love. But the narrator’s plan backfires when he learns that Lucy loves him for who he is actually. He hides his social status from the fear of being rejected by the young beautiful lady, Lucy. But he fails to understand that without deceiving her he would have been able to get her true love.

The young man narrates all of his deception, lies, and his past view of reality and life. Indeed such ashamed self-revelation allows the readers to understand who the young man was really in the past. Moreover, it is remarkable that the narrator often switches to a second-person point of view to earn more credibility. He directly assumes this stance of telling the story appears to allow the readers to understand the error of his perception about reality what he held in the past. On one hand, the narrator says in the beginning that he has understood his past errors. On the other hand, he tells his past life as if he still holds those values. This dual stance may contribute to the confusion about whether he is honest. But the narrator takes this dual stance only to allow the readers what his foolishnesses were in the past.

The narrator was a fool in the past. He goes on to telling his foolishnesses without being ashamed. Indeed, he is smart enough not to tell about his foolishnesses directly. Rather, he tells what and who he was in the past and he simply lets the readers feel what the ironies of his view about life and reality were. Now, he is fully aware of the errors of his past life. At the end of the story, he wishes that he would never be the same person again: “I wish I had that fellow right here that had on a Windsor tie and carried a cane. I’d smash him for fair. Gosh darn his eyes. He’s a big fool—that’s what he is” (256)