Previous
The Anatomy Lesson: Chapter 8
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in On Beauty, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Nature of Beauty
Politics in Academia
Race and Identity
The Value of Family
Summary
Analysis
Just before Thanksgiving, Zora is in a used bookstore in Boston. While there, she accidentally meets up with both Levi and Jerome. Jerome has just returned home from Brown for the holiday and hasn’t even told anyone yet. They marvel at how strange it was that they all met by coincidence and call Kiki, but she fails to have the same enthusiasm as them about their coincidental meeting. She’s more worried that Jerome is out when he should be in school.
Ironically, while the lack of communication in the Belsey family usually pushes them apart, this time it accidentally brings all the Belsey children together. The fact that the children are happy to see each other suggests that there is still some genuine affection in their family, but they struggle to express it and make time for one another.
Themes
Zora, Levi, and Jerome go to a café to catch up. Jerome says that the tension between Kiki and Howard must be hardest for Levi, who lives there all the time, but Levi says he gets out a lot so it’s not too bad.
Perhaps another reason why the Belsey children are closer now is because they can bond over the increasing tension between their parents. Although Jerome often seems eager to leave his own family by heading off to England or Brown, here he shows genuine concern for Levi, and Levi gives a relatively earnest response.
Themes
Zora mentions that Carl has been coming to Claire’s classes, which surprises Levi. Zora says Jerome would find him interesting, but Levi dismisses Carl as “the kind of rapper white folk get excited about.” Zora mentions that Kiki has been seeing a lot of Carlene, which Jerome already knows from Kiki’s phone calls. She also mentions how Monty is starting a new series of lectures after Christmas, but Howard wants to block them on the grounds that they contain hate speech.
Levi struggles to understand Carl, who comes from a less privileged background than Levi but who seemingly seeks approval from the same “white folk” (like Claire) that Levi rejects. This passage provides further evidence of how, despite all its issues, the Belsey family continue to support each other in some ways, with Kiki still making regular calls to Jerome and with Kiki keeping up with her father’s work life.
Themes
Zora complains to Jerome that even though Victoria is a freshman, she has been auditing a seminar of Howard’s that Zora is enrolled in. Zora feels that Victoria adds nothing to the class and doesn’t belong. Jerome defends Victoria, even if he agrees with some of Zora’s criticism. In the middle of this conversation, Levi gets up and says he has to get back to school.
Zora’s dislike of Victoria may be jealousy, since it seems that Howard likes Victoria as a student despite her (supposedly) lackluster participation. Meanwhile, Zora has to try very hard to earn her father’s approval. Levi seems to struggle the most with accepting his family (and perhaps also with being accepted in return), so it makes sense that he is the first Belsey child to leave this accidental meet-up.
Themes
Get the entire On Beauty LitChart as a printable PDF.
Instead of going to school, Levi goes to see his new friends, including the leader, Felix, who has the darkest skin tone of anyone he knows. Felix has set Levi up with a job selling things on the street, and Levi partners up with a man called Chouchou (“Choo”) to sell handbags and DVDs on the sidewalk.
After working in the hip-hop section of the music megastore failed to live up to Levi’s expectations, he seems to have finally found some new friends that align with his ideas about what the “authentic” Black experience really is.
Themes
Chouchou complains to Levi that he hates selling things, but Levi corrects him, saying that what he’s really doing is “hustling.” But Chouchou doesn’t understand the distinction and tells Levi to just focus on the job. Chouchou speaks in very formal English, but as soon as potential customers come by, he starts speaking in monosyllables. Levi notes that the older women walking by seem more comfortable around Chouchou than him.
“Hustling” is probably a word that Levi learned from hip-hop, and the term attempts to put a glamorous spin on something that is otherwise not a particularly glamorous job. While Chouchou is willing to act out the role of the monosyllabic immigrant to please potential customers, he doesn’t do that act for Levi, providing an early example that Levi’s ideas about authenticity might be oversimplified.
Themes
Levi marvels that people will pay so much for fake bags when the cost to make them is so low. But Chouchou points out that the shoes Levi is wearing and bought legitimately also have a massive markup.
While Levi sees bootlegging as an authentic improvement over the music megastore, Chouchou instead emphasizes the similarities between traditional retail and black-market goods, suggesting that each involves similar economic considerations.
Themes
Levi tells Chouchou that he doesn’t seem like the sort of person who would normally be hawking things on the street, based on the proper way he talks. But Chouchou just wants to be left alone and focus on the work. Levi asks Chouchou if he has any friends, and Chouchou replies that he has just a couple who work as cleaners at Wellington College.
Levi’s blunt comments to Chouchou reveal how much of Levi’s ideas about Blackness come from popular culture—and how spending some time with real people outside his usual network has helped him to gain a broader perspective. The fact that Chouchou’s friends are cleaners at Wellington reveals a stark class divide at the university that has mostly only been hinted at until now. It also creates a practical, unavoidable divide between the people Levi wants to align himself with and the life of privilege he actually comes from.
Themes
