Reply to Barry's 7C

I feel that Barry’s notion that the narrator of “7C” is crazy is quite accurate. I found myself contemplating throughout the entire story over the question of whether he was actually crazy or just a little too obsessed with scientific premonitions; but after the ending I obviously sided with insanity. Drawing from his compulsive demeanor, I was able to gather that something was not quite right with the narrator, but I just couldn’t pinpoint what. When we finally learn that he is the only one who can really see any of the scars and fears an impending mass catastrophe as their result, it became clear that something was obviously wrong with the narrator. Could his obsession with scientific explanations driven him mad? Or was it the fact that he may have known that his wife was cheating on him with his best friend? Although we never find out the true source of his insanity, I would probably bank on a combination of both of these factors playing a role in the narrator’s eventual demise. He may not have been initially completely crazy, but when you add the fact that your wife is cheating on you to a heap of other problems, you are sure to teeter on the brink of insanity. I also like Barry’s point that the narrator’s obsession with work has largely consumed all his emotions, leaving him an almost lifeless being. Although he is monotonous in his routines it is clear that he is only going about them because it is so ingrained in his persona. He has no love for his work but almost a desire to apply it in any way possible to everyday life. This mixture of work and reality obviously did not work out for the narrator because we see him eventually moving toward death at the end of the story.