The essay basically states that the boy lived a life of constant disappointment and despair. No mater what he did, he was predisposed to fail. In the ugly world in which he lived, his intense love/obsession for the neighbor girl only existed in his mind and was never tangible. The epiphany concluded was that "the single sensation of life disintegrates." When I read the story I thought that the boy received his epiphany when …showed first 75 words of 261 total…

…showed last 75 words of 261 total…not detect any part of the story as "disintegrating." I am not sure where the writer of the essay obtained that. I was able to identify with the character, in the way that sometimes you want something so much that you almost jinx yourself. Things don't always workout the way that they are planned; in fact, rarely do they ever work that way. Disappointment is a valuable lesson that everyone must learn at some point.