The theme of self-destruction has a great role throughout the story of Buddy Bolden. It was illustrated in his drinking, his friend Bellocq’s suicide, the physical harm he caused to himself and the constant defiling of the beauty of art described in the quote, “…The making and destroying coming from the same source, same lust, same surgery his brain was capable of.” (pg.55) Bolden was a slave of his drinking and his fears, both sources of his art and his ruin. This self-induced damage is what ultimately leads a life of art and talent to its end in the loneliness of a mental asylum.
It is near the end, when the narrator reflects walking on Gravier Street, that one is able to see a strong connection between the narrator and the main character. The phrases, “When I read he stood in front of mirrors and attacked himself, there was the shock of memory. For I had done that…” (pg. 133), explicitly proves that the person speaking identifies with Bolden’s suffering and discontent, with his emptiness. The passage communicates Bolden’s lack of satisfaction towards who he was, as it narrates that he stood in front of that mirror “defiling people he did not wish to be.”(pg.133) The quote, “this way he brings his enemy to the surfaceof his skin”, reminds me of the ideas presented by the movie Fight Club. Through pain and destruction the characters of the movie intend to find the truth, perfection, power and, a feeling of aliveness.
Finally, the author’s description of Gravier Street, “the coke signs almost pink”, is an allusion to Bolden’s life and how it ended. The coke signs, bleached by the sun, are only the shadow of what they had been before. The signs, as Bolden, have faded. The color has been drained out of them.
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