Diary of an Oxygen Thief

The unnamed narrator is an Irishman living in London who works in the art departments of advertising agencies. The novel spans almost a decade, from when the narrator is in his mid-twenties to thirties. He is the youngest of four children, and has two older brothers and a sister who view him as an annoyance growing up and who the narrator seems estranged from as an adult. He is neglected by his mother as a child, and his father, though he had previously shown him affection, informs the narrator he doesn’t care if he never speaks to him again. He is closer to his parents than to his siblings, although admittedly, that isn’t saying much. At the beginning of the novel, he is an alcoholic, although he begins to go to AA and becomes sober for reasons that are not altogether clear.

The narrator’s most overwhelming personality trait is his narcissism, as his self-centeredness seems to know no bounds. When he speaks of the pain Aisling caused him, he references the pain he causes other women but believes he is worse off than they are: “The same thing happened to me, only worse. Worse because it happened to me” (2). The narrator is completely self-involved, even going so far as to believe himself to be the protagonist of some great tragic film. He cannot conceptualize other people, even those who he proclaims to love people, such as Aisling and Pen.

When he speaks of Aisling, he does not conceptualize her as an individual with her own needs and desires. Rather, he thinks of her only in what she means to him. When he discusses their so-called relationship, he says, “As I got further in, I had already decided that I liked—nay, loved—her and progressively began gathering and threading together a daisy chain of little observations and nuances that tied her tenderly to me” (99). Even though the narrator proclaims to love Aisling, he only loves her in relation to himself. In many ways, she reflects him back at himself, although for her, this is not supposed to be a positive reflection. Rather, she despises him, and presumably thinks that if she can show him who he really is, he will despise himself as well. However, he is so caught up in his own ego that he truly believes he loves her, as he cannot admit to himself that he does not conceptualize other people as individuals with their own agency. 

Aisling is the love interest and antagonist of the novel. Essentially, she propels the narrator to convey the events, even though she is not fully fleshed out as a character. In most ways, she is a shadow or a reflection of the narrator himself—the narrator’s “dream,” as her name means this in Gaelic. The audience knows little about 27-year-old Aisling, except that she works as a photographer’s assistant in New York. Like the narrator, she is from Dublin; in fact, her stepfather was the narrator’s father’s solicitor. Later, the narrator realizes that a random girl from AA warned him about Aisling, although this incident itself seems suspicious. She is very beautiful in a way that the narrator finds pure. She has bright green eyes. The narrator initially misreads her, believing that she is an idiot because she is youthfully beautiful: “This was no […] inexperienced bimbo. She talked older than she looked. I was really thrown by that. I was expecting to spend the evening deflecting compliments of such enormity that I would find myself hating her for her lack of subtlety [….] Her superiority was graceful, sympathetic even” (82-83). She is much more intelligent than the narrator is, and easily sees him for who he truly is, even if he cannot admit this to himself. He reflects on how old and how uncultured he feels next to her; she is the real deal, and has had a life-long exposure to culture that he has only read or heard about. The only child of a wealthy family, her class sharply contrasts to the narrator’s poor roots, even though she is currently working a poorly-paid job and he is making more than $300,000 per year.

In keeping with her namesake, the narrator finds Aisling to be someone who he has known before: “She looked familiar, as if I’d known her before. Like some sister I used to have and lost” (81). He believes that there are similarities between the two of them but in reality, he is just seeing himself mirrored in her. His belief in this déjà vu-like meeting of Aisling demonstrates the narrator’s own desire to be superior; he wants to see himself reflected in this wealthy, classy woman, even if no such similarities exist. Essentially, she is everything he wishes he could be, especially in regard to how comfortable she is with herself. She is his dream, his fantasy, and he projects these aspirations onto her via the creation of a relationship that does not exist. 

Pen is the narrator’s longest relationship, which starts when the narrator is in his twenties. They date for 4 ½ years, and Pen is incredibly nice to him, ignoring and/or forgiving his transgressions, such as when the narrator cheats on her. The devolution of their relationship is entirely the narrator’s fault: “She was beautiful and fun and caring, but I was bored, so bored” (10). In many ways, Pen represents the ideal girlfriend; she is who the narrator knows he should want, and who should make the narrator happy, but the narrator is so self-centered that he is unable to be happy with Pen. Even less is known about Pen than about Aisling, other than the fact that she has blue eyes; again, the narrator’s lack of description, when it comes to his female subjects, illuminates the depth of the narrator’s own narcissism.

In spite of the narrator’s narcissism, he does regret hurting Pen:“She’s the one I regret hurting the most. Why? Because she didn’t deserve it. Not that the others did, but she wouldn’t have left me if I hadn’t ripped her apart. And I needed her to leave me because she was getting in the way of my drinking” (8). His regret is limited by his alcoholism. As such, even though he says he is sorry for hurting her, there are doubts as to whether he can empathize with another person in order to actually be sorry for his actions. But the reader understands that Pen is strong; after the night of their breakup, it does not appear that she makes any attempt to contact him. Rather, she totally cuts the narrator out of her life, even though he believes that she is plotting against him, for example by causing his bicycle accident. The narrator believes that she wants to hurt him and even gives her ways of torturing him, but the audience doubts that Pen ever does any of these things. Rather, she seems to wash her hands of the narrator, much to the narrator’s annoyance. 

The narrator’s mother plays a relatively small and entirely nameless role within the narrative. There is little, if any, description of her, save in relation to the narrator himself. However, given the narrator’s relationships with women, this is not surprising, but rather confirms that his association with women more than likely stems from how he treats his mother. Essentially, he cannot conceive of women as people separate from himself because he does not view his mother as her own person with agency. He also blames his mother for not giving him attention as a child, believing she did not notice him. When he tells his mother of the molestation he suffered at the hands of a priest, he remembers: “I begged my mother to let me wear long trousers. I wasn’t old enough, she said, and anyway it was summer and Brother Ollie was only being friendly. It wasn’t real abuse” (34). Regardless of whether this incident is being recalled truthfully or not, the narrator’s relationship with his mother sets the stage for his future relationships with women. In this way, his mother becomes an integral character, even though she is ill-defined.