If I had to write a paper about this novel...

If I had to write a paper about this novel, I would choose between a couple of different topics. One of the topics would be about the phrase "Every Man For Himself". I felt that in the story, Jesse James could only trust one person, that person being himself. He had someone watching after another person and so on to let everyone know that if they messed up they would be basically killed. I also felt the same thing for the narrator. He could not trust the other "detectives" because for all he knew they could turn their backs against him. When he let his guard down when he went into town, he told people what he was doing and of course they deceived him and Jesse found out the real truth. Another topic I would choose is the concept of deception vs paranoia. These two topics could be combined together into one topic because I felt that Jesse was also paranoid because he had everyone watching over everyone because he knew he would be protected if that was the case. The narrator was also paranoid for his life because if Jesse found out the truth ,which he did later in the story, he would be killed. I feel like there are a lot of similarities between Jesse and the narrator.