The young narrator struggles through poverty and unease in a grim New York boarding house where hunger loneliness and the presence of petty crime shape his daily existence, and these experiences imprint upon him a deep awareness of the harsh and unstable nature of life while he reflects on his earlier years in Canada and the strict moral and religious upbringing that formed his values, and as the contrast between his idealism and his difficult reality grows stronger his inner conflict intensifies, so that he finds himself increasingly searching for a path between material survival and spiritual meaning.
