In the same conversation where Hitler’s being “larger than death” was mentioned, Murray and Gladney discuss the difference between killers and “diers”.
Murray believes that in the world, there are two kinds of people. Killers take lives, in order to attempt to defeat death and gain strength, while diers accept the fact that they will cease to exist and die peacefully. By slaying others, killers gain “life credit” (277) and buy time from death. Using this line of thinking, Hitler represents the ultimate killer. Through the millions of deaths he caused, he gained a life that went beyond the grave. Although this conversation was purely intellectual, it reveals the primal human fascination with
death. Jack possesses a very fragile notion of his own identity and self-worth. His need to build up an identity, however artificial, is seemingly bolstered by the fact that without his Professor J.A.K. persona, he becomes “a big, harmless, aging, indistinct sort of guy” (83), according a colleague. In order for people to take him more seriously as the head and founder of Hitler Studies and to project an aura of strength and power, he undergoes the name change, creates an elaborate costume that consists of a black robe and dark glasses, and gains weight in order to increase in stature. He cloaks himself within a contrived identity because to be his true self, he would have to stand alone, and those who break from the crowd “risk death as an individual, … risk dying alone” (73), as he states in his lecture about the role crowds take in Hitler’s speeches.