Chapter Two

In the second chapter we learn something about Ursula Riggs and of course also about Ugly Girl. In this chapter we can see that Ursula has got something you’d call a split personality.

The author often changes the perspective between third person singular (Ugly Girl) and first person (Ursula Riggs). We can exactly watch her and notice that this character often switches the personality. Because of the inner monologues we also notice her different moods (p. 12, ll. 1-12).
Sometimes she’s in the Fiery Red mood and is very aggressive, self-confident and an excellent sportsman. Then she doesn’t care about the others. She doesn’t need friends. Everything is unimportant to her, only sport is necessary. In such a mood she also quits test, though she only did the first half (9. 12, ll. 6-8).



This chapter remembered me strongly of a film, I saw last year. The movie “A Beautiful Mind” is about John Forbes Nash, a genius mathematician. He studied at the Princeton University but at the age of 30 he fell ill. He had to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia. For the next thirty years he couldn’t work well as a mathematician or publish anything. He also thought that he has to work for the CIA against the Soviets. He imaged that he had to decrypt codes. As that schizophrenic personality he was an of anger agitated man.
He couldn’t control his moods and was extremely angry, aggressive and also anti-Semitic. But when he wasn’t the spy, he was a genius man with a family and a calm life. First in the 1990’s he was healed of his mental disorder.

I think there are several similarities between Ursula Riggs and John Nash. The most important similarity is that both have different moods. Ursula changes the personality between herself and Ugly Girl. When she’s in her Inky Black mood, she is really laid-back. She’s very self-conscious and a coward, who hides away, cries and is ashamed of herself. But when she is in her Fiery Red mood she is an aggressive, insulting girl who stands up alone. She doesn’t need anybody. She’s an excellent sportsman and she’s proud of herself and of everything she does.

John Forbes is also a very mood addicted person. He’s got an aggressive mood and a calm one. In his Fiery Red mood he’s almost another person. He imagines being a spy for the US government and he’s much more fearless than his other ego. This ego, comparable to Ugly Girl, is an aggressive awkward human, with an addiction to outbursts of fury.

From my point of view, these egos have aggressively-paranoid psychopathy.