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Chapter 2
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’s mother scolds Geryon for picking at a wound on his lip. After she leaves, the air in the kitchen feels oppressive to Geryon, and he tries not to cry. Geryon’s brother enters the kitchen. He teases and berates Geryon when Geryon asks him the time, refusing to answer Geryon’s question before coming up behind him and grabbing him in a chokehold.
Geryon sees his mother as his protector, which is why the air feels oppressive once she leaves: he no longer has a physical barrier between himself and his brother. This passage also introduces Geryon’s fixation on knowing the time, which suggests a relationship between time and control. It’s as though knowing the time—knowing how much longer he must wait for his mother, his protector, to return—gives Geryon the allusion that he can control how much harm his brother is allowed to inflict on him. The outside world is threatening and unpredictable, but a firm grasp on time—the force that propels all beings forward—offers an opportunity for Geryon to exercise more control over his experiences.
Themes
The babysitter enters the room, and Geryon’s brother moves away from Geryon. The babysitter accuses Geryon of sulking. Geryon asks her the time, and she replies that it’s nearly 8:00—his bedtime. She offers to read to Geryon to help him get to sleep. Geryon selects a book about Loons so that the books his mother normally reads him remain sacred and only heard in her voice.
This passage further develops the concepts Carson presented in the book’s opening essay, namely the ability of language (particularly adjectives) to create reality and alter ways of being. Geryon thinks that hearing his favorite books read in the babysitter’s voice will literally tarnish or degrade the books’ sentimental value to him.
Themes
The babysitter reads to Geryon in Geryon and his brother’s room. Geryon’s brother enters and snaps Geryon’s leg with a rubber band. He asks Geryon what his favorite weapon is. Geryon’s is the catapult. The babysitter’s favorite is the garotte, which offers a “quick but painful death.” Geryon says his favorite is a cage. Geryon’s brother mocks him, arguing that a cage isn’t a weapon.
Geryon’s brother continues to inflict pain on Geryon’s outer self, hurting him with a rubber band. That Geryon identifies a cage as his favorite weapon illustrates the impact his brother’s abuse has had on him. Being trapped in his inside world—the direct result of the abuse—is a stifling experience that has taught Geryon how destructive and powerful alienation and captivity can be.
Themes
