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Chapter 8
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 has been seeing Herakles every day, and he feels “loose and shiny” when he’s with him. Geryon’s mother complains that he’s changed. Geryon considers how love makes him cruel. Geryon’s mother notes that she’s placed some freshly laundered shirts in his room, hinting at the intentionally torn, disheveled t-shirt he’s wearing. Geryon places his camera in his pocket. His mother asks him what he likes so much about Herakles anyway. Geryon thinks of many things he can’t say aloud to his mother and offers that he and Herakles like to discuss art. Geryon’s mother looks past him as he speaks. He considers the question, “How does distance look?” and asks his mother if he can light her cigarette, pulling a pack of matches from his pocket. His mother says no, thank you.
Geryon’s observation about feeling “loose and shiny” when he’s with Herakles implies that the relationship has caused him to release the tight grip he usually maintains on his inner life. After his brother began abusing him when Geryon was a young child, Geryon closed in on himself and decided to protect his inside life from the world. Now, he’s more open to sharing that self with others. Still, Geryon’s struggle to open up to his mother and say aloud the things he likes about Herakles shows that Geryon is still unwilling to be vulnerable about certain things. When he looks at his mother and considers the question “How does distance look?” he’s acknowledging how stiff and unfamiliar they have become to each other. He’s trying to make sense of that distance by likening it to a physical distance that one can more easily quantify and understand.
Themes
