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Daniel Can Never Be Secretive Analysis

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Daniel had spent enough time with his parents to begin thinking in a similar, mutinous way as an adult, but he’d also spent enough time with the Lewins to feel their influence too. He both wants to rebel against the ideology his parent taught him and rebel against the normalcy that the Lewins tried to instill in him; he is cornered by his aching desire to be nothing and everything all at once. Living in the shadow of his parents leaves him feeling stripped of his ability to create his own identity. Naomi Morgenstern writes:
Daniel feels deprived of agency for a good reason. He considers his status as an “assignment that not even the most callow [FBI man] could consider without yawning.” Daniel can never be secretive, can never ‘have’ the secret …show more content…

It would be fair to assume that he hates Phyllis, too, but their relationship is complex and enigmatic and we really only see the darker side of it. Phyllis is a pliable, pacifistic woman who Daniel has no qualms about abusing and dominating. He goes out of his way to frighten, intimidate, and scar her –– both literally and figuratively. Their relationship reeks of Daniel’s insecurities and it is obvious that he doesn’t believe that she is married to him because she loves him. Daniel “strongly suspected her of having found it thrilling to marry into a notorious family,” –– the idea a miserable remnant of the time when he and Susan were passed around from hand to hand, poked and prodded by all sorts of officials and counselors who wanted to have their names written into the story of the Isaacsons and their abandoned …show more content…

He commands her to take her pants off, and when she doesn’t, he silently threatens her and their son’s lives. She begs him to stop as he begins to speed on the rain slick road and details the vehicle’s defects. He is vindicated when Phyllis apologizes for not being good enough for him because he and his family are “[...] all such big deals of suffering” (Doctorow 59). He doesn’t stop, though because even though his suspicions have been confirmed, that isn’t really what he desires at that moment: he wants to frighten her, to control her. Daniel goes on to humiliate his wife in the privacy of Susan’s car, her nakedness blurred by the rain that streaks the windows, their son sleeping soundly in the back seat. He brands her ass with the cigarette lighter, with no apologies or explicit regret, he simply changes the subject. He further abuses Phyllis when he involves their infant son, with whom he obviously has no emotional connection, frequently referring to baby Paul as an “it”. While on a walk through Riverside park, Daniel tosses the baby up in the air, continuing to do so even after baby Paul’s laughs turn into cries. He revels in the look of “absolute dumb dread” on his son’s “Isaacson face” as he ignores Phyllis’ pleas for him to stop his madness. Once again,he doesn’t stop because he “enjoyed the moment it left [his] hands and hated the moment it returned

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