There are a lot of disadvantages in his personality, for example beside his taboo relations, he is selfish and got bad behavior, as spitting on the ice cubes then returning it back to the fridge. David is too proud of himself, he likes to dress well and look at himself in the mirror “I was extremely handsome man”. This represents someone who want to have nice life, spend some good time and die happy, but in act his life has no meaning, even when he thought to have meaning, all what he thought was just freezing a moment in his life, so he can be an important person and have something to talk about years later, and also to control the power of image “I was spliced into the image”.
However, David gets an opportunity to go across the country to make a documentary. Accompanied by a lady called Sullivan who is a sculptress, whom David feels comfortable with and Pike who used to fight in Vietnam War and Brand their guide who is a novelist. As they travel David decides to make his own film of discovering America, but in act he thinks that by re-discovering America, he would discover himself, because he represents America’s culture, as he says “explore parts of my consciousness”. An indication for this is that he covered the period when he was young. And this might help others to define David’s self reality.
Moreover, as David’ travels, he carries a camera with him to capture different views or images in order to influence the people towards it, because people are controlled by images, which is a result of the absence of their individuality.
Media is our number one influence. That’s why David Bell is trying to show us different images, and that is to make us believe and get affected by his own ideas. And because reality imitates image, he cannot resist this power that reflects his life. For example, when he describes his friends’ attitudes and how they do look like, which is of course considered an image, might help the reader know what kind of person David is. Actually David has no values, and a person without values lives the roughest life and will have a hard time during his journey through it.
In addition to David’s qualities, he lies at his father, when he wanted to borrow his car and asks him for the key, to go and visit his ill friend, but in fact he went to watch a movie.
So, by producing his film, he expects people to react positively towards it, and discover what is America, so he can discover himself. At the end of the film, David appears reflected in a mirror as he holds the camera he says that these twenty seconds of this scene serves as a beginning.
Finally, the novel ended by no solution for David’s problem, and still he could not discover himself, but he only achieved in his narration the promise of exploration.
The story is based on the power of image, because America as a country is controlled by image (people imitate what is on T.V), And David the protagonist is a subject controlled by other powers, and not an individual, who has his own reality.
