The transformation
When the protagonist sees a woman, he feels his “teeth getting thinner, longer pointed.” His back “hunches” and his forehead “sprouts two antennae that sway in the air, flagging a need for attention.” He wants “to scrawl under the feet of the women” he meets and “admire from below their upright posture, their delicate ankles.” The man also feels “repulsed” by “slimy feelings of cunning and need.” It is “a bizarre mix of emotions and instinct” that comes over him, compelling him “to approach these women like a hunchback in the presence of schoolgirls.” This imagery evokes a feeling of confusion. On the one hand, there is a feeling that the protagonist is sick and needs help. On the other hand, he might be dangerous to women.
Ambiguity
An unsuccessful suicide attempt resulted in obligatory and regular attendance of a therapist. He told her about all his relations with women, but could not explain why he wanted to kill himself. The man “tried many times” to tell her that his “suicide attempt” was “only” his “way” to “escape the permanence of the sun.” “With frankness,” and using his “limited psychological knowledge and powers of articulation,” he tried to explain that he had attempted suicide “out of a kind of curiosity, or maybe as a challenge to nature, to the cosmos itself.” This imagery is supposed to illustrate the emotional state the protagonist finds himself in.
Dependent
The protagonist asked Shohreh “for her number.” “I won’t give it you,” she said, “but I don’t mind if you put in an effort and get it on your own.” According to her, it was “more romantic that way.” “As she danced” she looked at him, and sometimes she “smiled” and other times she “ignored” him. He could tell how “flattered” she was by his “look of despair.” She knew “perfectly well” that he was “willing to crawl under her feet like an insect, dance like a chained bear in a street market, applaud like a seal on a stool.” He wanted “so much” to be “the one to swing her around the dance floor.” This imagery evokes a feeling of longing that the protagonist feels.
