The nameless I of Steps is a metamorphic figure who appears in a variety of roles, including vagrant boy in the villages, university student, photographer, ski instructor, soldier, and alien in a new country. The protean nature of the self is suggested in the representation. His varied movements through the chaos and barbarism of the modern world have been characterized by Jack Hicks as "the individual's deepest attempt to escape the encumbrances of fate and social control," as well as "the attempt to shore up a constantly eroding self that is sliding toward history and that is possessed in time by the consciousness of others." He is also a metamorphosing figure, invading and transforming other lives for his own self-satisfaction. He can seduce a laundry girl with the magic of a credit card and half transform her into a woman of the world or wonder how giving drugs...