On page 74, the narrator describes the “shell-shocked” veterans he sees at the Golden Day bar.
“Many of the men had been doctors, lawyers, teachers, Civil Service workers; there were several cooks, a preacher,a politician, and an artist. One very nutty one had been a psychiatrist. Whenever I saw them I felt uncomfortable. They were supposed to be members of the professions toward which at various times I vaguely aspired myself, and even though they never seemed to see me I could never believe that they were really patients. Sometimes it appeared as though they played some vast and complicated game with me and the rest of the school folk, a game whose goal was laughter and whose rules and subtleties I could never grasp.”
At this point in the book, the narrator believes that hard work and rule-following will help him earn respect in society. What lesson might he learn about this from the veterans he encounters in this chapter?