Egotism and Self-Expression

The diary is intensely self-focused, with the author explicitly acknowledging his egotism as a means to understand and document his own experience, yet he also struggles with the limitations of this self-absorption, seeking to escape it through science or art.

The narrator is intensely self-conscious, describing himself as 'rings within rings' and acknowledging his tendency to think, talk, and write about himself.

Barbellion is deeply self-absorbed, analyzing his moods and desires; he writes letters to vent his rancours and feels frustrated by his own self-assertiveness.

The narrator admits his 'superlative egoism and superlative conceit' in his marriage, and describes his temperament graph as a record of self-love and self-disgust.