Word: ego
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...inhabiting both characters. Out of the struggle to continually remake himself sprang three distinct on-stage personas: Marshall Mathers (his real name), who raps earnestly about the joys of fatherhood and the oppression of celebrity; Eminem, "the emcee who goes onstage sober and spits his metaphors"; and alter ego Slim Shady, "the guy who shows up after a few shots of Bacardi - and wants to fight." Repressing this last figure is a battle whose victory only comes with maturity. "We've all got Slim Shadys up inside of us," he writes. "Most responsible adults know how to ignore that dude...
...times ego gets the better of Cheeta, who sees himself as the "true pioneer of simian thespianism." He dismisses King Kong's contributions in a few words of faint praise and neglects to acknowledge the numerous other stand-in "Cheetas" in the Tarzan movies. He's less than forthright about the biting incidents that were said to have ended his Hollywood career. And his drinking habits can't have helped either - only the onset of diabetes forced him to become a teetotaler, albeit an unrepentant one: "There's a little more dignity in sharing a couple of cocktails, some caviar...
...from beyond the grave (or possibly from a morphine coma). He has been drafted into the Korean War--a draft for which Portnoy was a year too young--and he has fallen on the battlefield. You could read this as Roth's quasi-Oedipal execution of his younger alter ego, but it plays more like a correction: Wake up, Portnoy, there's a harsh world out there, and it doesn't care whether your mother loves you or not. Marcus has learned, in a way that Portnoy never had to, that his parents were right: The world will devour...
This particular perspective on the art is especially evident in his third section: one long poem entitled “Autobiography of My Alter Ego.” “Autobiography” tells the story of a man, not unlike Komunyakaa, who has spent time in Vietnam. Unlike Komunyakaa, however, he never moved beyond working at his father’s bar, and the whole poem resembles the unfocused rant of a slightly destabilized veteran. Here, the urgency that was muted throughout the other sections becomes more apparent. Komunyakaa’s alter ego is angry and full...
...seen in nine presidential cycles. Even more remarkable, Obama has made race - that perennial, gaping American wound - an afterthought. He has done this by introducing a quality to American politics that we haven't seen in quite some time: maturity. He is undoubtedly as ego-driven as everyone else seeking the highest office - perhaps more so, given his race, his name and his lack of experience. But he has not been childishly egomaniacal, in contrast to our recent baby-boomer Presidents - or petulant, in contrast to his opponent. He does not seem needy. He seems a grown...