The Destruction of New York: Barely Alive

By Kenia Cuenca. 
The novel : The Destruction of New York 

"Ugly and offensive beast in the dark places" as the teacher refers to the emotional mood swings of every person implies they are imperfect. In class my partner chose this quote. I didn't get it, when I read this it sounded like they were making up a made believe monster from a scary movie. Since it's coming from the author, one can assume that he has held himself back from become this beast. Reading through it, the beast as he describes it; is a person with money that just wants more money like a hogger a BEAST! Wanting more and more. The author mentions a man this character seems to be important to him. The man is wealthy and has power to do as he please. This man has millions and is afraid that his money will escape from him. The author questions if the man truly is satisfied and happy at all. The author gives death a form of personification this to me stood out the most because it relates with the first quote from class because this invokes emotion towards death can be viewed as not an imperfection but beast. My quote was "Death with his hour glass" Time and death would closely be related to fear of death or of life. I believe that the book brings out this as an issue. Death was repeated again in page 62. "Never more to return to the toil and the trouble, the hard , hard lessons of life". Each of the characters that were mentioned so far have a struggle with life. The are suffering such as not having enough food to eat, the woman in the the first chapter needing more girls to take advantage of, and the "man" having so much money and begin afraid to loose it. The 3 quotes to me all seem related because each person tries their best to overcome their situation most of them aren't really living, and death seems to be a close threat to each one of them. Some in form of hunger others by the threat they face of being wealthy.