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The Hole in Colin’s Gut
The Archduke Franz Ferdinand was a not particularly important or well-liked Autro-Hungarian aristocrat while he was alive, but his assassination in 1914 was used as justification by his relatives to start the conflict that would ultimately become World War I. Colin identifies with the Archduke because he was shot in the gut, and the wound must have felt the physical version of the emotional hole Colin locates in his own gut. It seems that Colin also finds significance in the figure of the Archduke because he died young, and was not particularly impressive to anyone while he was alive. Colin worries about the legacy he will leave, and he worries (although not explicitly) that if he is to achieve any kind of legacy, it might only be by dying young like the Archduke.
The town of Gutshot, Tennessee boasts that it holds the grave of the Archduke, and it is this grave that initially inspires Colin to stop in Gutshot while on his road trip with Hassan. The grave has an obelisk, which John Green himself has acknowledged appears to be a phallic symbol, representing that the Archduke’s identity as a man continues in his death. When Colin has been kicked in his own groin near the end of the novel, he anagrams the letters on the obelisk and realizes that it is not the Archduke at all who is buried there, but rather Lindsey’s great grandfather, whose name is an anagram of Franz Ferdinand. Dr. Dinzanfar wanted his grave to be marked as that of the Archduke, and Hollis has recently decided to capitalize on tourists who want to see the grave. In this way, the story of the Archduke is distorted even further beyond the actual facts of his life. The Archduke thus represents for Colin not only the arbitrariness of death but also, by the end of the novel, the potential power of storytelling over historical events.
The Archduke Franz Ferdinand Quotes in An Abundance of Katherines
The An Abundance of Katherines quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Archduke Franz Ferdinand. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 5
Quotes
Shit, Colin made a funny. This place is like magic for you. Shame about how we’re gonna die here, though. I mean, seriously. An Arab and a half-Jew enter a store in Tennessee. It’s the beginning of a joke, and the punchline is “sodomy.”
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He thought of Chicago, where you can go days without ever once stepping on a single patch of actual earth. That well-paved world appealed to him, and he missed it as his feet fell on uneven clumps of hardened dirt that threatened to twist his ankles.
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The Archduke Franz Ferdinand Symbol Timeline in An Abundance of Katherines
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Archduke Franz Ferdinand appears in An Abundance of Katherines. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3
...distracts himself by thinking of other holes in stomachs. In particular, he thinks of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination led to World War I. Still, Colin keeps coming back to...
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Chapter 5
...his desire to find air conditioning, until he sees a sign for the grave of Archduke Franz Ferdinand off Exit 212 in Tennessee. Colin points it out to Hassan, who is...
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...After he hangs up, he and Hassan eat at Hardees and get directions to the Archduke’s grave from the woman behind the register. They are looking for a town called Gutshot,...
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...if Colin if he thinks “they’ve ever seen a Jew-fro.” Colin insists, feeling that the Archduke’s grave will show him something about his missing piece and the hole in his gut...
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...features a sign that says, “THE KINGDOM OF GUTSHOT – ETERNAL RESTING PLACE OF THE ARCHDUKE FRANZ FERDINAND / ICE-COLD BEER / SODA / BAIT.” Colin jokes about the sign, and Hassan says...
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...she is reading Celebrity Living. Finally, he walks to the desk and asks about the Archduke. She surprises Colin by smiling briefly, then tells him that tours are once an hour,...
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Chapter 7
...field, which turns abruptly into a graveyard. A six-foot obelisk marks the grave of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Lindsey says that Colin probably knows the story already, but she describes the...
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Colin looks at the obelisk and reflects on what might have been for the Archduke if he hadn’t been so much like Colin. “In the end,” Colin reflects, “the Archduke...
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Hassan asks how this rural town in Tennessee got the Archduke. Lindsey says the town bought him around 1921 for thirty-five hundred dollars. Colin mentions that...
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Chapter 15
...they see a house that Colin recognizes as one that can be seen from the Archduke’s grave. They hurry toward it and see movement in the graveyard. As they draw closer,...
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Chapter 16
...to find the first girl he ever kissed having sex with TOC next to the Archduke’s grave. Colin turns around and sees that Hassan is right—the guy with Katrina is TOC....
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...ground, but Lindsey frees herself by squeezing TOC’s genitals. Colin makes his way to the Archduke’s obelisk, “the only geographical location in the world that wasn’t currently spinning.”
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...pushes through it, knowing he has to help Hassan, and drags himself up on the Archduke’s obelisk to look around. TOC is gone. Lindsey is tending to Hassan with her first-aid...
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Chapter 19
After a silence, Colin says he thinks the Archduke’s grave contains someone else’s body. Lindsey says it’s her great-grandfather. Colin is surprised that she...
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