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Chapter 3
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 likes Tuesdays best. On the second Tuesday of each winter month, Geryon’s father and brother are away at hockey practice, leaving Geryon alone with his mother. They turn on all the lights in the house and eat Geryon’s favorite meal: buttered toast and canned peaches. Geryon and his mother eat on supper trays in the living room. Geryon’s mother smokes, reads magazines, and talks on the phone. Geryon works on his autobiography by gluing a cigarette to a tomato to make a sculpture. He rips up a $10 bill to use as hair. Geryon’s mother compliments the sculpture but suggests that he maybe use a $1 bill next time.
Geryon’s father and brother going to hockey practice is an amusing detail that situates Carson’s retelling of the classical myth of Geryon firmly outside of Ancient Greece and in a place that more closely resembles 20th-century life in her native Canada. Geryon’s sculpture represents an early attempt to construct an autobiography. His decision to use a tomato as a stand-in for himself underscores how centrally redness factors into his sense of self. This scene also further develops Geryon’s close relationship with his mother, who encourages his attempts at self-expression.
Themes
