Polanski stars as Trelkovsky, a Polish-born French citizen who moves into an apartment whose previous tenant committed suicide. Over the course of the film, Trelkovsky comes to believe that his tenants are engaged in a conspiracy to drive him to suicide by forcing him to take on the personality of the dead woman. Unlike Catherine Deneuve’s Carole Ledoux from Repulsion, the timid Trelkovsky remains somewhat of a cipher. But The Tenant isn’t so much a psychological portrait of grief as it is an unnerving acknowledgement of the ambiguous nature of the world. Unlike Rosemary Woodhouse’s all-of-them-witches nightmare fulfillment, Trelkovsky really is a victim of his own paranoiac fantasies.

When a man comes to visit the previous tenant, Trelkovsky mentions her suicide. The man discusses the woman’s fascination with Egyptian culture and how upset he is that she passed into the realm of the dead without her ever knowing about his affections for her. Between this scene and a series of philosophical ruminations about grief, it’s clear that Polanski is still dealing with Tate’s death. When Trelkovsky and the man stop at a restaurant, two drunkards offer free drinks to everyone in the room except the man who yearns for the dead tenant. Via this absurd and seemingly simple exchange, Polanski brilliantly evokes an evil society’s almost supernatural ability to recognize weakness in others and to punish all that is good.
The film’s nihilist point is clear: It’s the world against Trelkovsky and not the other way around. There’s an overwhelming sense here that the world is a stage and the people in Trelkovsky’s immediate realm are in constant performance mode. Because everyone in the film seems to exist solely for his benefit, it’s sometimes easy to brush Trelkovsky off as an egomaniacal loser. (Imagine a more uptempo remake of the film with Tom Cruise in the lead.) The film’s actors stand in center frame, staring not only at Trelkovsky but at the spectator as well. They pass judgement, whisper mischievously, and spread their idle gossip. This is the power of Polanski’s image—to so chillingly summon the self-consciousness and fear of the individual and the pervasive gaze of threatening others.

The song is a journey to him finding himself.
David Bowie was asked about the meaning of the song and he said, “I guess I wrote it because there was a part of myself that I was looking for. That song for me always exemplified kind of how you feel when you’re young, when you know that there’s a piece of yourself that you haven’t really put together yet.”
This song, originally written by David Bowie, is about a man who is shocked to meet the other version of himself or his personality he thought had been done away with.
He is able to recognize this different version because it’s probably from his past and he thought he had buried it. The writer must have mentioned ‘stairs’ to illustrate his journey upwards and away from the kind of person he originally was. When he meets this other self, it calls him his friend, but he gives him a very hostile response. He confesses that he thought this old character died a long time ago. This could mean that there was something about this former version he did not expect to survive.
In the chorus, the other version tells him that he did not die but was able to take hold of himself and survive. He adds that he’s face to face with the man who sold the world; where world here signifies his soul.
The second verse reveals how the writer tries to move on despite the encounter. Laughing and shaking hands, they part ways but the current version of himself is somewhat lost while searching. He is virtually at a crossroads trying to figure out which version of himself to show the world. Roaming around for years and years probably represents his tours and businesses. He keeps on searching for answers, trying to get himself ‘together’. He however, finds out that in pursuit of pleasing a ‘million’ people in the world, he lost his real self and died alone.

All in all, “The Man Who Sold the World” deals with the struggles individuals face with regards to self-identity. It exposes how easily it is to change one’s own identity to suit a current lifestyle without even noticing it.
This song is about a man who no longer recognizes himself and feels awful about it. For years, Bowie struggled with his identity and expressed himself through his songs.
Some lyrical analysis: "We passed upon the stair" is a figurative representation of a crossroads in Bowie's life, where Ziggy Stardust catches a glimpse of his former self, (being David Bowie) which he thought had died a long time ago. Then he (the old David Bowie) says: "Oh no, not me. I never lost control." This indicates that Bowie never really lost sight of who he was, but he Sold The World (made them believe) that he had become Ziggy, and he thought it was funny (I laughed and shook his hand). He goes on to state, "For years and years I roamed," which could refer to touring. "Gaze a gazely stare at all the millions here" are the fans at concerts.