Audition

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes descriptions of emotional abuse.

The physical imagery of shorelines accompanied by fathoms of deep water collectively becomes a metaphor for the narrator’s approach to method acting, which she also applies to her everyday life. As she struggles to navigate The Challenge of Performing the Self, she relies frequently upon this imagery to describe her deliberate forays away from the grounding influence of reality and into the fluid waters of fantasy and self-deception involved in role-playing.

The narrator discusses her process in Chapter 5, explaining that she often immerses herself in the reality of a role. As she states, “In some ways the part is only working if I lose sight of the shore. But at the same time, it’s important to be able to come out the other side […] Otherwise, you won’t survive” (66). The narrator feels it is important to lose herself so deeply in her role that she takes the risk of drowning in the willful fantasy that results. Her use of this technique foreshadows the dysfunctional progression of her and Tomas’s dynamic with Xavier throughout Part 2.