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Chapter 18
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Autobiography of Red, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Creativity
Communication and Mystery
Time
Self and World
Summary
Analysis
Geryon wakes from a dream and listens to the sounds of Hades around him. He likes to think about his autobiography during this period between sleeping and wakefulness when he has better insight into his soul. He thinks about how the soul’s skin is “like the terrestrial crust of the earth, which is proportionately ten times thinner than an eggshell.” He thinks about his autobiography, which has since morphed into a photographic essay.
Geryon likes to think about his autobiography in the period between sleeping and wakefulness because the ambiguity of this time parallels the divide between inside world (unconscious) and outside world (waking self). His autobiography will most successfully convey his true self in this liminal space because his true self is his inside world, which, in his wakeful state, he remains too afraid to show to the world. Geryon’s observation that the soul’s skin is “like the terrestrial crust of the earth” again establishes a comparison between volcanos, which come from tectonic plates in the earth’s crust, to the dichotomy between inner and outer lives.
Themes
Herakles enters the room carrying a tray of two cups and some bananas. Herakles repeats stories his grandmother has been telling him, including one about the last question on the electricians’ union exam in Buenos Aires being “What is the Holy Ghost?” Herakles’s grandmother joked that the question was “truly electrical.” Geryon offers “what time of day did Krakatoa erupt” as an alternate last question; he’s been reading about volcanoes in the encyclopedia.
Herakles’s questions are more abstract and conceptual whereas Geryon’s are static and objective. Geryon’s interest in volcanoes conveys the comfort he finds in a fixed, unchanging notion of reality. This notion is comforting because it creates the illusion of control, perhaps.
Themes
Herakles changes the subject to Geryon’s mother’s phone call last night. He asks if Geryon should be getting home soon. Geryon chews his banana and thinks about how to respond. Herakles tells him there are daily buses to take him back. Geryon feels that “a red wall had sliced the air in half” as Herakles says he’ll probably stay behind and help his grandmother paint the house. Geryon tells Herakles that he’s a good painter, but his voice breaks as he speaks. Herakles reminds him that they’ll always be friends before instructing Herakles to get dressed: he and his grandmother are taking Geryon to see a volcano today. In Geryon’s autobiography, the page about today will feature a photograph of a red rabbit tied with a white ribbon labeled “Jealous of My Little Sensation.”
Herakles breaks up with Geryon, ending the uncomfortable message with the age-old reassurance that they can still be friends. Herakles handles the interaction calmly as though it doesn’t affect him at all, but the news is earth shattering to Geryon, who feels as though “a red wall had sliced the air in half.” This reflects Geryon’s shame about himself and his monstrosity. He views the breakup as Herakles’s rejection of his monstrosity. The “red wall,” redness signifying Geryon’s monstrosity, is what drives a wedge between them and prohibits the development of further intimacy. While Geryon blames himself for the breakup, in reality, it’s Herakles’s desire for individual freedom and general shallowness that has initiated the breakup.
Themes
