Money 5 (final)

John Self is the "inhuman dog" (347). Or at least, this is how most characters in Money see him. Shadow, Martina’s dog, represents John’s double or shadow. John confesses that he, if were an animal, would be a dog. But John knows there is a better life outside of all his addictions although is ultimately confined to his “nature”(268). The author makes present this factor of a person’s nature, some sort of essence of a being that we are all inherently bounded to by some unknown force (in this case John Self is under the will of Martin Amis). Even after changing by quitting his drinking, smoking, pornography, and any other activity linked to money, John expresses that he feels prosthetic, like a robot, android, cyborg, and skinjob (304). Trying to pry himself away from his self-destructive tendencies, John, like Shadow, yearns to return to his true nature, despite the risks of losing everything he’d ever desire (the “good life”: Martina, money, and even intelligence). The author alludes to this as John, during his “metamorphosis,” catches the runaway Shadow gazing into the dirty and grungy life he had on 23^rd Street before Martina took him in as her own (312). In retrospect, John contemplates

“Maybe money is the great conspiracy, the great fiction. The great addiction too: we’re all addicted and we can’t break the habit now. There’s not even anything very twentieth century about it, except the disposition. You just can’t kick it, that junk, even if you want to. You can’t get the money monkey off your back.” (354)

If we being to think of John in terms of an actor, it would be fitting to think of him as someone unable to break character. Forever self-indulging, John Self is willing to risk the “good life,” the life he’s always dreamed of and speaks of, because he just can’t “kick” his old habits with money. Indeed, in the wide stages of the world, John is just "one of life's actors" (267).