Renee is obsessed with her identity, and the appearance seen by outsiders because of what happened to her sister. At the beginning of the book, Renee describes her attitude, actions, and physical appearance as the typical concierge: fat, short, ugly, lazy, and tolerated, and these visuals affirm the other characters’ stereotypes of her role in society (Barbery 19). Another instance of her self-imposed false appearance is when Renee tries to convince herself to act uneducated when presented to Ozu’s painting (198-200). Ozu isn’t affected and sees straight through, but Renee realizes how pointless it is to act stupid around him. In the climax of her character arc, Renee divulges what happened to her sister and how that affected her (285). Paloma now understands why Renee said no to Ozu and her fear of rich people. Paloma is also another character that focuses on her identity and appearance, albeit for different reasons than Renee. In her fifth profound thought, Paloma does not care about being an absolutely spotless person, and Colombe decides that Paloma is a slob as a result (Barbery 85). When Paloma visits her mom’s shrink, she lowers her mask, revealing her intellect for the sake of moving him (208-209). Eventually, he breaks and …show more content…
When viewing more accomplished peers’ pages, less confident people can feel inferior and boring. Having people constantly brag about how great their life is and seeing pictures of material wealth can make any who are slightly uncomfortable with themselves crumble into self-doubt. Also, while people can find similar individuals on social media that eventually lead to deep friendships, often there is an increased feeling of being a brick in the wall and not unique. The human desire to be popular has also skewed people to post only what they think their followers will like, thus losing their identity to a character they