This is what I understood by it: that for Astaire the person in the film was not especially connected with him. And I took this to heart, or rather, it echoed a feeling I already had, mainly that it important to treat oneself as a kind of stranger, to remain unattached and unprejudiced in your own case. I thought you needed to think like that to achieve anything in this world. Yes, I thought that was a very elegant attitude."
-- The Narrator (Part Two, Chapter Seven)

Importance: In this quote, the narrator projects her own lack of identity onto her idol, Fred Astaire, thus cementing her attitude. The narrator is alienated from herself and states that she wishes to consider herself a stranger; she feels that this alienation is something to aspire to, as demonstrated by Astaire's dancing. For the narrator, dance is another mechanism to prevent herself from coming to terms with her identity: at various...