At first, the passage seems centered around Peter trying to show Anna how he is a different person now. Twice, he brings up how he was in the past, first by saying “I’m not the night owl I was,” and second by saying, “it’s not egocentric and selfish, the way I used to be.” However, his actions in the passage suggest otherwise. He spends the passage boosting his own ego and making Anna do the same for him. Peter speaks highly of himself by jumping from subject to subject, first talking about food, then no longer being a night owl, then back to food and then onto sunlight. Anna then stops him and mentions that he “always did take care of [himself]”. Before this, he has been calm and now he has become agitated. He tells Anna “no, this is different,” …show more content…
He goes on about eating healthy and staying out in the sunlight, and these are things that are connected to the human body. Taking care of oneself includes eating foods that are good for the body and being in sunlight to absorb vitamin D. Although he briefly mentions his new personality, he spends more time talking about his body. Then he turns around and tells Anna not to focus on his biology and body, even though that is what he was just doing. He talks about himself physically, and then Anna comments on how he always took care of himself, after which he suddenly switches gears and starts saying that his change is now based on philosophy. The conversation was going fine until Anna spoke and Peter became defensive and aggressive. It is like Anna comparing how he is now to how he was before made Peter realize that perhaps he is not as different as he thought he was. Deep down, he knows that he has not changed one bit. This realization is what causes him to slip back into that controlling mindset and needing his ego to be boosted by exerting power over Anna. His own insecurity and negativity towards himself and his personality are what make him into a man who is selfish and egocentric, no matter how hard he tries to convince himself that he is no longer that