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Chapter 40
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
This photograph depicts a close-up image of Geryon’s pant leg. Geryon points his camera out the car window as he, Ancash, Ancash’s mother, and Herakles make their way up a mountain. Geryon cries out each time the car goes over a bump, but nobody pays attention. Herakles and Ancash are talking about Yeats in the front seat. In his accented English, Ancash pronounces Yeats “Jeats,” and Herakles keeps correcting him. Ancash can’t tell the difference and pronounces yellow “jellow” as well. Herakles grows impatient. “English is a bitch,” states Ancash’s mother.
This conversation about Yeats parallels Geryon’s earlier conversation with Herakles’s grandmother about the Yeats poem “Lapis Lazuli.” It shows how Herakles is too concerned with superficiality (Ancash not pronouncing the name correctly) which prevents him from having a meaningful conversation about Yeats’s poetry. It also shows that Herakles doesn’t seem to respect Ancash very much, either. He disregards his partners, not seeing them as people whom he affects, only people who can satisfy or annoy him. He lacks introspection and a willingness to reciprocate.
Themes
Suddenly, Ancash slams on the brakes as four armed soldiers appear out of nowhere and surround the car. Quietly, Ancash’s mother pushes Geryon’s camera between his knees, where it is out of view.
This scene is the photograph described at the start of the chapter. It’s interesting how candid photographs are different from the meticulously composed photographs Geryon normally takes. This sudden, accidental, unexpected photograph is an example of time imposing onto photography rather than photography manipulating time.
Themes
