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Book 3, Part 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Trust, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
U.S. Foundational Myths
Gender and Subjugation
Wealth
Power and Morality
Self-Interest vs. the Common Good
Summary
Analysis
In the mid-1980s, Ida goes to the Bevel house. She’s struck by how it has changed now that it’s a museum, and she’s confused by the possessiveness she feels for the house. By all rights, she thinks she should want to see it burn, not restored to its previous state when Andrew lived there. She goes upstairs and requests to see Mildred’s papers. The librarian wishes her luck, since Mildred’s handwriting is almost indecipherable. Ida takes out a pencil and begins to read the papers.
Ida intimates that something bad happened while she worked for Andrew but doesn’t completely spell out what it might have been. The indecipherability of Mildred’s handwriting suggests that she may not have intended others to read her papers, a clear contrast between those papers and Andrew’s autobiography, which was intended for the public.
Themes
In 1938, Ida goes to Andrew’s house for her first day of work. When she enters, she’s greeted by a housekeeper before the butler announces that she should go to Andrew’s office. In the office, Andrew explains how their work will proceed. He’ll dictate his story, and Ida will write it down, rearrange the details chronologically, and add stylistic flair. Ida hadn’t realized that she would essentially be writing his book for him, but she reassures herself that the work will become clearer as they proceed. Andrew tells her that he wants to make one point absolutely clear: Mildred never suffered any “mental ailments,” despite what was written in the novel Bonds. She did die in a Swiss sanatorium, he says, but of cancer.
Andrew expects Ida to essentially write his autobiography for him. That’s one of the first concrete examples that he is willing to take credit for the work that other people do, particularly when those people are women. Even though Ida is dubious of the role that Andrew wants her to play, she’s been looking for a job for months while she and her father have fallen deeper into debt, so she doesn’t seem to have much of a choice about whether to continue working for Andrew.
Themes
As Ida leaves Andrew’s office, the butler hands her an envelope with her advanced pay for the week. He says that maybe she could use it to buy a typewriter or new clothes. When Ida leaves, she opens the envelope and sees 10 newly printed $20 bills. Her rent is $25 a month. She’s never seen so much money before in her life. She buys clothes before going to her landlady to pay the back rent that she and her father owe and then going to pay their bills at stores in town.
This passage reinforces the power imbalance between Andrew and Ida. Ida can use the money from her job working for Andrew to pay off the debts that she and her father owe around town, but to keep getting that money, she has to do the work Andrew wants her to, regardless of how she feels or what she thinks about that work.
Themes
Ida asks Jack to help her buy a typewriter. She thinks that from his work as a journalist, he’ll know about typewriters. When they get to the store, though, it quickly becomes clear that he knows nothing. Ida buys a typewriter on her own. As they leave, Jack says that it’s just a matter of time before his career takes off, but the waiting has gotten expensive. Ida senses his meaning and hands him money. Jack at first tries to decline but then takes the money. He asks if Ida and her employer were alone while they worked. When Ida says yes, Jack says he doesn’t like it. Ida tells him that she’s not going to say anything to try and appease Jack or ask him to trust her. After she says it, she realizes she used the same flat affect that Andrew uses.
The novel portrays money as the ultimate determiner of power. In Andrew and Ida’s relationship, Andrew holds power because he has more money than Ida. Ida then replicates that power dynamic in her relationship with Jack, who has less money than her. She gives him money and then sets the terms that go along with that money. The distinction, though, is that Ida uses her power to set clear boundaries that insist that Jack respect her autonomy, while Andrew uses his power to make Ida agree to whatever terms of work he comes up with.
Themes
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The next day of work, Andrew has a cold. Ida shows him the pages she wrote based on the notes from the first day. Andrew is dissatisfied with them. He thinks that they’re too hesitant and don’t reflect who he is as a person. He also says that they need to correct the falsehoods in Bonds about Andrew’s parents. It’s ludicrous to him that anyone could suggest his father had an estate in Cuba. Ida asks Andrew to tell her about his parents. Andrew says his mother was brilliant, which made her difficult to please. She fired Andrew’s tutors one after the other and eventually made Andrew fire them for her. He tells Ida he’ll have to cut the day short due to his cold and tells her to rewrite her initial pages.
Andrew’s description of his mother to Ida differs significantly from his description of his mother in the autobiography, confirming that his autobiography presents an overly positive portrayal of his life and the people in it. While Andrew’s stated reason for portraying his family members in that way is to counter the depictions of those people in Bonds, the difference between reality and what’s written in Andrew’s autobiography makes it clear that his autobiography, like Bonds, is a work of fiction.
Themes
In the days between their next meeting, Ida struggles to capture the right voice for Andrew’s autobiography. She goes to the library and checks out autobiographies by “Great American Men” like Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Carnegie, and Ulysses S. Grant. In each of them, she finds the same belief that the writer’s story deserves and needs to be heard. She mimics that tone in a preface for Andrew’s autobiography and is sure she’s found the write voice. In her elation, she goes to talk to her father, who has been sullen since she took the job on Wall Street, which he disapproves of. Ida asks him what the difference is between her and the workers on a Ford assembly line. Are they to blame for capitalism? She worries that her father will become even more angry, but instead, he agrees with her and asks her to tell him about her job.
Ida’s consultation of autobiographies of “Great American Men” puts Andrew in conversation with “Great American Men.” Diaz makes that connection to suggest that those “Great Men,” including the “founding fathers” of the U.S., relied on falsehoods and fictions like Andrew does to tell self-aggrandizing stories that elevate their own worth, while downplaying and papering over facts that might complicate and contradict their stories. By doing that, Diaz suggests that the myths upon which the U.S. was founded might be, like Andrew’s autobiography, fraudulent.
Themes
At their next meeting, Andrew says that the pages Ida re-wrote are good and nothing more. But that’s just what Ida wanted to hear. The two outline the structure of the autobiography. Andrew wants to highlight his talents as a businessman and show that his business practices have always gone hand-in-hand with the public good. He also wants to correct the image of Mildred portrayed in Bonds. Andrew says that Mildred saved him with her humanity and kindness and by making a home for him. He is rendered speechless for a moment, and Ida begins to understand that Andrew’s protectiveness of Mildred spurred him to write a rejoinder to Bonds. He tells Ida about how he and Mildred met and discusses Mildred’s love of music. In particular, she liked avant-garde pieces, which Andrew never understood or cared for, though he liked how much she appreciated them.
Andrew confirms Ida’s suspicions that, more than anything, he wants his autobiography to seem like those of other “Great Men,” and the truth or accuracy of the autobiography’s contents are less important than the mythos that the autobiography conveys. Andrew’s assertion that his family’s business practices have always gone hand-in-hand with the public good seems patently false, considering that his family profited from the racist, unjust, and immoral enslavement of Black people, and he himself profited immensely from the Great Depression, which left countless others bankrupt.
Themes
Jack brings Ida flowers to apologize for the argument they had the last time they spoke. In the apartment, Jack and Ida’s father talk about politics. Ida’s father sees the rise of fascism in Europe and advocates for direct action against capitalist imperialism. Ida thinks that the one thing all branches of anarchism have in common is a disdain for hierarchy and inequality. She’s not sure exactly what kind of action her father proposes, but she feels embarrassed for him because she knows how far he is from power and that what he says won’t make any actual difference in the world.
This passage reinforces the idea that Ida’s father is a foil to Andrew. According to Ida’s father, capitalism is the source of inequality and hierarchy. Andrew, on the other hand, views capitalism in more or less Darwinian terms, where striving to earn more and more money is an extension of an innate drive to survive. In this passage, Ida mentally sides against her father not by taking sides between the two men, but by identifying who holds power in the world.
Themes
Ida then feels embarrassed for herself because she realizes that her feelings about her father signal that she has momentarily embraced Andrew’s view of the world. Jack finds some of the pages Ida has written for Andrew on the floor and tries to read them, but Ida tells him he can’t see any of what she’s writing. She grabs the pages from Jack’s hands. The two argue again, and Jack leaves. Ida hides the pages deep in her closet, where no one will find them.
Ida’s brief embrace of Andrew’s worldview shows how Andrew and his exorbitant wealth impact everything they touch, as Ida—whose life, up to this point, has been shaped by her father’s anarchist views—naturally slips into siding with him as a result of the vast amount of power he wields.
Themes
At their next meeting, Andrew goes over pages Ida has written about Mildred. In those pages, Ida especially focuses on Mildred’s love for experimentally modern music. Andrew says the writing is good, but Ida should remove the discussion about Mildred’s preference for avant-garde music. He wouldn’t want people to think Mildred was pretentious, he says. He also tells Ida that she should include some charming domestic scenes with Mildred. When Ida asks for details about those scenes, Andrew says that he’s sure Ida will be able to come up with something.
In his autobiography, Andrew attempts to subjugate Mildred and mold her into someone who she didn’t resemble in her life. Namely, he tries to make her seem like a gentle and kind homemaker whose love of music apparently sprang from an innate and unflappable childlike wonder. By doing that, he attempts to erase Mildred. And by asking Ida to invent scenes for the book, he shows that he has no scruples about fictionalizing his autobiography and also signs off on further erasing Mildred.
Themes
Andrew then tells Ida that he bought the publishing company that publishes Bonds, and he plans to buy every copy of the book that goes into circulation, so no one will have access to it. He has also sued Harold Vanner several times over. He doesn’t expect to win the lawsuits, but at least they will waste Vanner’s time and money. Ida expresses concern, and Andrew gets angry. He asks Ida if she thinks his response is over the top, and Ida says it sounds like he’s trying to bend reality to his will, as he said before is his approach to business. Andrew says that’s exactly right, and, for the first time, Ida feels like maybe she should be afraid of Andrew.
Andrew’s treatment of Harold demonstrates Andrew’s power and shows that his power derives from his vast wealth. Andrew’s actions resemble those of Benjamin in Bonds when he pressured Dr. Frahm into devoting an entire wing of the sanatorium to treat Helen. In both instances, Diaz depicts a world in which one’s wealth determines one’s power. People like Harold, Dr. Frahm, and Ida, who have significantly less money than Andrew, seem powerless when compared to him.
Themes
Ida’s father is one of the main suppliers in New York of the subversive almanac, which is a calendar of anarchist holidays. He tries to talk to Ida about her job out of genuine curiosity, but because she has been sworn to secrecy, Ida tries to dodge his questions. Sensing that Ida is holding something back, her father becomes sullen and hostile. Ida counters with a drawn-out lie; she tells her father that she takes notes at board meetings and details the business maneuvers that she’s witnessed. Her father is transfixed, but Ida feels like a traitor. She has sided against her father with one of his sworn enemies.
Along with detailing Ida’s involvement in Andrew’s autobiography, Ida’s memoir is also, in part, a coming-of-age story, in which she must navigate her father’s and Andrew’s worldviews to find one of her own. Ida’s connection to her father represents family and love, while to Ida, Andrew represents the possibilities of wealth and power. Ida’s choices between the two characters in each section represent the tension she feels between two possible directions that her life could go.
Themes
