Section IV

Visual:

Contrast: When Harvey first meets the teachers at the school he is working for during the summer, he looks happy. His face is drawn normally, as in it shows the same color all the way through. When he hears the summer boss lecturing about how they shouldn't be writing articles for jazz magazines, Pekar's face is covered by a shadow as he knows something fishy occurred.

Parallel: It looks like he's wearing the same jacket when he is giving a kid his basketball, as the one when he hitchhiked to New York City.

Written:

Contrast: Harvey thought school, especially geography was going to be easy for him. He was very happy and confident, but after getting a C+ on a test, he was so emotionally shattered that he quit college because he could not drop the class.

Parallel: When Harvey beats the guy up in the church parking lot, it is similar to his past days, even though now he considered himself to be an intellectual, there is still that past fighter in him and it never really went away.

4. So far Harvey thinks of himself as an intellectual and not a fighter anymore, like he was as a high school kid. He starts reading a lot of books and listening to jazz. He writes an article for a well known jazz magazine and works during the summer. Even though he seems like he has changed, when he cut off a driver with his car, he had a fight with him in a church parking lot. Harvey feels good about beating the guy up, just like how he enjoyed fighting when he was a high schooler. This is a reason to believe that while on the outside he may have seemed to change, deep down he is still the same kid. Harvey's identity is pretty spontaneous and up for grabs. Every section of reading he seems to change, from being a man beating jock, to a more calm and softer intellectual. I don't really believe in fate or that it shapes your identity, and Harvey's personality changes are spontaneous, but they shape according to his surroundings. When he was in high school, being the "tough" guy was considered cool and that is what he did. In the end his personality changed based on or had some change from his surroundings.