"So many murders of his own body. From the slammed fingernail to the sweat draining through his hair eventually bleeding brown into the neck of his shirt. That and Nora's habit of biting the collars of his shirt made him eventually buy them collarless. There was a strange lack of care regarding his fingers, even in spite of his ultimate nightmare of having hands cut off at the wrists. His nails chewed down and indistinguishable from the callouses of his fingers. He could hardly feel his lady properly anymore. Suicide of the hands. So many varieties of murder. After his child died in his dream it was his wrist he attacked." (49)
From this passage I can infer that Bolden is either depressed or extremely paranoid. In the second sentence when he talks about his sweat he describes it as "bleeding" into his shirt, this use of diction cannot be a coincidence. The words "murder" "bleeding" "nightmare" "cut" and "died" show that Bolden is constantly thinking about either his own death or the death of his child in his dream. The ending of the passage is interesting when he describes that "it was his wrist that he attacked". Attacking the wrists in a form of cutting is a sign of depression and the need for pain to release that depression, somehow this passage conveys that the different "murders" of his own body is a sign of depression and self mutilation. I deduce that Bolden is paranoid and/or nervous as he has bitten his fingernails to where they were "indistinguishable". So from this passage I can infer that Bolden is both depressed and paranoid about his future.
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