Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake

In keeping with Frank Abagnale’s explorations of identity, mirrors (and reflections) have a strong symbolic presence in Catch Me if You Can. The book opens with a scene wherein Abagnale looks at himself in a hotel mirror wearing his Pan Am copilot’s uniform. He reflects that “a man’s alter ego is nothing more than his favorite image of himself” (1). While open to interpretation, this line suggests that Abagnale seeks the ideal aspects of himself in this reflection, even if his outward appearance is that of a false persona.

Chapter Nine offers the reader an interesting inversion of this mirror scene. Herein, Abagnale looks at his reflection for the first time in many months upon his release from the harsh French prison. He is frightened by the dirty, unkempt, and starvation-thinned person he sees in the mirror: “It was a man. It had to be a man, but God in heaven, what manner of man was this? (240). This moment establishes a direct contrast and psychological tension with the opening scene of the book.

Abagnale explains that in his Pan Am uniform (as with the numerous other uniforms he dons), he feels more confidence than he feels in his ordinary street clothes: “There is enchantment in a uniform, especially one that marks the wearer as a person of rare skills, courage, or achievement” (45).