The Itch by Don Delillo

　　This is a unique story. I have never read such an unusual story. It is unusual because the writer does not tell the name of the protagonist until the last page. In the end, the reader knows that he is not a human being. It’s “the living itch, man-shaped, Robert T. Waldron, thinking incoherently.”

The theme of the story is itch, which dominates almost all the story except the human-voice-like sound of urine. The itch probably signifies something irritable, something unpleasant in the world, which the skin-doctor mentions when she was asked what her itch was. The relation between he and Ana is not clear. Maybe they love each other, but it is not mentioned clearly.

  The whole story is not direct, nor clear. It does not develop like it has a plot. The writer “develops” the story at random. Sometimes he presents the scenes of the couple—he and Ana, sometimes the scenes of he and the skin-doctor, and other times about the urine sound, Zaum. It is “incoherent.”

   The writer is successful in making the reader irritated and itchy because of little plot and a lot of indirectness. The ending is an unexpected surprise.

   There should be some philosophy behind the story, but it is obscure.