Despite that both the characters provide wholly unrealistic back stories, the other characters seem almost all too willing to overlook such discrepancies in the hopes that these men can provide them with something they could not find anywhere else in their lives.

And so the fact that the two men are able to get so close so quickly may not be just a product of some uncanny ability at manipulation and guile, but might be more telling of the other characters who are so desperate as to believe in the miracles peddled by these proverbial snake oil salesmen.

Kosinski almost immediately establishes Chance as a vessel through which other characters realize their own hopes and dreams. ?When one was addressed and viewed by others, one was safe. Whatever one did would then be interpreted by the others in the same way that one interpreted what they did.? Chance's revelation hints at the ironic truth that our own self identity is indelibly linked with others perceptions of ourselves. In this way, Kosinski makes the connection that who Chance is is irrelevant: it is who the characters around him see Chance as that becomes the reality.

By making Chance a character with no history and only a personality projected onto him by those around him, Kosinski is able to show the other characters as so self involved and desperate for some ideal personal connection that they are able to subconsciously mold Chance into this idealized figure. Consider Benjamin Rand, an ailing businessman of immense political and economic power. He says to Chance, ?I know that you're not afraid. That's what EE and I admire in you: your marvelous balance.?

Here Benjamin projects his own wishes of health, youth, and emotional strength onto Chance because his own failing health and insecurity about the fate of the economic empire he has established frightens him. By seeing Chance as this model businessman, able to care for EE in his passing, Benjamin is able to take comfort in the uncertain future.

Similarly, characters throughout the novel attribute abilities and personality traits to Chance (or Chauncy which is an excellent example in of itself) which are in reality reflections upon themselves. Be it EE's bedroom revelation, the Russian Ambassador's assertion that Chance spoke and read Russian literature, or the homosexual encounter at the party ? all of these situations were the result of characters seeing themselves in the shallow pool of Chance's mind and taking comfort in the handsome and seemingly charismatic reflection.

In a different but related tale of a man who aspires to rise up the social ladder much as Chance did in Being There, the play Six Degrees of Separation has a similar theme of desperate people finding comfort in an enigmatic individual. The character of Paul, much like Chance, is able to infiltrate the upper echelons of society by providing the other characters with all the things he knows they desire. He is able to build an instantaneous trust with high born society through charm and an expert knowledge of their intimate details.

What is more surprising, however, is not that because of this the Kittredges accepted him into their home, but rather that even after finding out that he was not who he said he was ? they were still enamored with him. It becomes obvious that the powerful emotions that Paul was able to create were much more potent than the lies he used to create them. ?We believed him... he did more for us in a few hours than our children ever did?, Ouisa said.

The fact that he wasn't really Sidney Poitier's son, or that he really wasn't friends with their children, or even the fact that the situation of their meeting was entirely fallacious to begin with became completely irrelevant to the Kittredges, particularly Ouisa. He was able to provide her more real emotion through an illusion than all of her supposed real life experience had thus far given her. Even though she didn't even know his name, Paul was able to bring Ouisa and Flan the ability to see themselves for the first time: Ouisa the ?collage of unaccounted-for brush strokes? and Flan ?the gambler?.

In conclusion, the stories of Chance and Paul are interrelated in that they show how all the characters around them desired more than even they themselves even knew. They yearned for that deeper emotional connection beyond the prosthetic interactions provided by their social circle.

These people desired a human connection, and both Chance and Paul were able to provide something so incredibly and emotionally real that the fact that nothing else was true became meaningless.

Even amongst the lies and deception, the two con-men were not really peddling lies at all, for what the people were buying was not the fiction of the story but the very real emotions behind them.