That is a funny conclusion to the little boy's struggle for recognition: it proved to be a pointless and useless endeavour. What did the author mean by this? Is the message that a name famous for its association does not constitute an individuality? After chapter 12 with all those skulls as motifs, is he telling me that there is no individuality after death? Is the moral here that luck is the only thing that makes an individual? What is individuality anyway? Perhaps there is no point and the author simply hates people who want to be "the first person to x", so he wrote a story to show those people how meaningless their desire is.