Status Updates From El simpatitzant

“Having been thus produced outside of marriage, I confess to feeling very uncomfortable at the thought of being married myself” (36).

“Many bastards behave like bastards, and I credit my gentle mother with teaching me the idea that blurring the lines between us and them can be a worthy behavior. After all, if she had not blurred the lines between maid and priest, or allowed them to be blurred, I would not exist” (36).

“Should I not refer to those people, my enemies, as ‘them’? I confess that after having spent almost my whole life in their company I cannot help but sympathize with them, as I do with many others. My weakness for sympathizing with others has much to do with my status as a bastard, which is not to say that being a bastard naturally predisposes one to sympathy” (36).