It isn't uncommon for a forty-two year man to be under a lot of stress to the point where he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. In a study done at the Indiana University in 1996 it was found that nearly 25% of the American population has felt close to a nervous breakdown every year. However, even those who said that they weren't close to having a nervous breakdown said that they did have some experience with mental health problems, which in toll adds even more to the total percentage (Henning 1). .
Stress can be both mental and physical and Novins experiences both. A symptom of physical stress can be poor diet or illness in this case Novins experiences both again. After the first day of living out of the hotel Novins and Jay have a conversation in which they discuss how things were going. It was during this conversation that Jay mentions that he bought groceries with the fifty dollars that was in the jewelry box (Ellison 6). Novins immediately curses himself for this but not because he's hungry and wants the food but because of the money. If you notice Jay is the one who is concerned about food, meanwhile throughout the whole story there is never any mention of Novins ever eating. This is were we see Novins become ill; the other symptom of stress, and Novins only has tea, which didn't even satisfy or help him (Ellison 8).
However poor diet and illness are not the only effects of stress. More likely stress is caused by those little annoying thoughts that stick in your mind and bother you as well as daily responsibilities that put pressure on you. There isn't a better character than Novins who has responsibilities but chooses to ignore them. He has responsibilities to his mother, an old girlfriend and even to his own morals and they have finally caught up with him. Novins has an elderly mother who lived in Miami Beach and as long as she didn't intrude in his life he had no reason to hate her.