Previous
Chapter 6
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 reaches adolescence. He meets Herakles at the Bus Depot late one Friday night. Herakles gets off a bus that has just arrived from New Mexico as Geryon enters the bus depot to call home. They lock eyes meaningfully. Geryon asks Herakles for change from a dollar. Herakles doesn’t have any but offers him a quarter for free, since he “believe[s] in being gracious.” Noticing that Geryon’s hands are cold, Herakles places them under his shirt to warm them.
Herakles travels the country by bus and appears to be something of a drifter, which implies that he is a free spirit. These characteristics make him quite unlike Geryon, who is more subdued, anxious, and skeptical of the larger world. Herakles’s action in placing Geryon’s hands under his shirt to warm them is physically and emotionally intimate. There’s an erotic connotation to his action, too, which might foreshadow the start of a romantic relationship.
Themes
