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"‘I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud.’
I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years."
These lines appear in Chapter Three while Percy is talking to his mother about his birth father. Percy’s narration demonstrates the ways in which his identity has been shaped by how others view him. All he has been able to see so far is that others consider him a troubled boy with a learning disability. His mother, on the other hand, can see how wonderful Percy is by looking below the surface. She sees him for all he is and what he can be rather than what he is not. Percy has suffered by trusting figures of authority to determine his worth throughout his young life, preventing him from uncovering the truth and instead forcing him to live behind the damaging notion that he is nothing more than a problem.
"The only thing I really excelled at was canoeing, and that wasn’t the kind of heroic skill people expected to see from the kid who had beaten the Minotaur."
This quote appears in Chapter Eight shortly after Percy settles into Camp Half-Blood. Here, he believes that although he may have done something heroic, nothing will help alter his identity or how others see him. He still believes that nothing he does will be good enough and that he is inferior to others, despite his best efforts. This quote demonstrates Percy’s low self-esteem, as he continues to view himself by the world’s standards. He believes that, especially among other demigods, and following his misadventure with the Minotaur, he has something to prove, but also believes he will never be good enough to satisfy himself or anyone else.
Just when I’d started to feel accepted, to feel I had a home in cabin eleven and I might be a normal kid—or as normal as you can be when you’re a half-blood—I’d been separated out as if I had some rare disease.
This quotation appears at the beginning of Chapter Nine after Percy moves to a separate cabin following the revelation that his father is Poseidon. Prior to learning about his father, Percy feels alone at the camp, as he is an outsider who does not know his father’s identity. At first, Percy believes that, once he is claimed by his father, he will start to feel restored in his identity by having that missing piece of the puzzle put in place. This is not the case; he feels even more isolated because knowing who his father is further separates him from the other campers. He now has to figure out how being Poseidon’s son will shape his identity as a demigod. This quote also addresses Percy’s hesitation to fully recognize that he is a half-blood. He has always felt like an outsider, but now he has an even bigger reason to feel alone. Being a half-blood drives Percy further from the “normalcy” with which he once identified.
