The narrator Rodrigo’s personal search for meaning and identity inspires his determination to write Macabéa’s story. Rodrigo’s difficulty in beginning Macabéa’s tale and describing her character stems from his personal questions about who he is and what he’s meant to do with his life. This is why the first third of the novel is primarily devoted to Rodrigo’s meandering philosophical questions, existential conundrums, and esoteric thought experiments. He feels incapable of sitting down and focusing on Macabéa’s story because the questions that dominate her narrative are the same questions that pervade his own mind and life. He believes that by writing he might discover “a secret meaning [...] that goes beyond words and sentences” (6).

However, because Macabéa’s story is so simple and her character is so plain, he fears that writing about her might not capture the complexity of life itself: “Forgive me,” he says at the novel’s start, breaking the “fourth wall” by directly addressing readers, “but I’m going to keep talking about me who am unknown to myself, and as I write I’m a bit surprised because I discover I have a destiny” (7). By writing, Rodrigo therefore actively seeks to define himself and to understand his world.