James Kelman's story The Burn has been interpreted as a universal depiction of the condition of the working class in an oppressive society. Additionally, critics have highlighted the stylistic success of Kelman's writing; its ability to use language to highlight a psychological and emotional state in a fraction of an individual's life; but there is another perspective that could be the unintended result of his genius as a writer. His anonymous character gives us an additional perspective to view his journey. And, by following the anonymous character through his journey to an interview, we can see the role he plays in the social construct, however oppressive, that leads him to a desperately inevitable dead end. Social constructs can have a debilitating influence on an individual's life. The propaganda that this concept spreads by positioning the individual in a hierarchical system is sometimes opposed and is sometimes taken as fact. When met with opposition, the construct can motivate one to aspire to become more than it would allow. And, every time this construct is believed, it is used as confirmation of a self-deprecating idea. The negative effect is that it creates permanence where a potentially temporary condition exists. James Kelman's story posits that although social constructs are created to hold a group in place, it is the belief in that construct that perpetuates the cycle of oppression, propagates the lie, and makes it real. Kelman's character is a slave to external forces. . This pushes him in a direction he doesn't want to go. There are choices. He sees them. But he chooses the least desirable, as noted: "He glanced back across the vast expanse of the paper...a state of permanent illusion" (43). Kelman's character lives there and rationalizes why he is there, pointing to the external forces that surround him, that imprison him, from which he should free himself, but "he simply had no choice" but to stay in the place in which the social construct has placed him and “Be alone.” In conclusion, James Kelman's anonymous character is led down a path that is an allegory of his life and the end of his life. The forest, the stream, the obstacles and the shadows of the characters he encounters along the way show the social construction that led him to inner turmoil and later, to his prophetic conclusion. And, through the narrator's announcement of the character's inevitable disappearance, Kelman shows that although throughout the story he emphasizes the universality of the condition of "everyone", he superimposes the individuality of the end..