The Beach Man Loss Of Identity

At the very beginning of the book, he described himself as “I am nothing”. In order to contradict his emptiness toward his lack of identity, he decided to search for his past after Hutte left him. In here, Guy made a clear connection between his identity and his past, and he considers his searching of his past would eventually leads him to rebuild his identity. However, at the searching begins, Hutte’s “the beach man” metaphor seems to contradicts with this notion: Hutte describes a man as “the beach man”, as he spent many years in the beach and leaves no trances of his presence. Guy explicitly expresses his anxiety toward his searching for his past: “I did not dare tell Hutte, but I felt that ‘the beach man’ was myself” “The beach man” shows his losing of identity. “He is to be seen, in his bathing costume, in the corners and backgrounds of thousands of holiday snaps, among groups of happy people”. Guy compares himself to this beach man to express the losing of his independency, because in here,
As the story is approaching to an end, he started to consider evening as warm and welcoming. When they stayed at the hotel near the boarder, he described the nigh as following: “We often went there in the evenings…Denise had disclosed to me that George reminded her of her father. We often made a wood fire. The hour passed in warmth and closeness, and we felt home.” In here, the night is no longer about uncertainty and abandoned, but warm and welcoming. Moreover, as he furthered developed his feeling toward the night, he explicitly says that “I would like to be able to relive certain clear nights when we gazed down at the village, which stood out sharply against the snow…Those nights, everything seemed simple and reassuring and we dreamed of the future.” In here, night becomes a source of hope instead of