Chapter 5: Create a Need: Stir Anxiety & Discontent Summary and Analysis

Criticism is the key factor in this chapter—how criticism plays into seduction. The example is a professional writer surnamed Lawrence. Again, the book's author plays on the readers' sense of lowliness and admiration by using high status social models for his cases in point. It is part of how the book's author seduces his readers.

Lawrence's case, according to Greene, simply began with a long term friendship. He was a gentle lad, and viewed as effeminate because many of his friends were girls and he was more thoughtful than physical. Many are both, but male stereotypes do tend to push and jibe based upon whether a fellow is more one or the other.

Like so many true stories of such friends, Lawrence and one of his best...