Instead, I seem to be hauled off by one critic after another to nose around in some dim corner of a closet or anteroom, to examine a few specks of dust that only this particular shamus has found. Yale U P, 1992. The assumption of character in the sense of selfhood is a noble error that is essential to the holding together of society, as well as essential to any coherent storytelling. One definition of madness, however, is the taking literally of a figure of speech and then living in terms of that figure. The madman misinterprets himself and other people according to false literalizations. . . .
Catastrophic difficulties are likely to follow from taking figures of speech literally .
Not only is Bob not crazy, but he'll probably buy his first Cadillac before the average critic pays off his school loans. Technically, Nietzsche-ically, any construct of Bob will fall way short of ultimate truth.