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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Babel, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Colonization and Racism
Language, Translation, and Power
Race, Gender, and Intersectionality
Violence and Nonviolence
Complicity
Summary
Analysis
In 1829, Professor Richard Lovell, a White Englishman, makes his way through the streets of Canton, China. He kicks in the door of an inconspicuous house. Inside, a boy lies dying. His mother is dead beside him. With her dying words, she breathed out the two syllables of the boy’s name. Professor Lovell finds the boy on the brink of death. He takes a mysterious silver bar from his pocket and places it on the boy’s chest. The boy is slowly revived. Professor Lovell asks if there is anything the boy needs to bring with him. The boy points to his mother, but Professor Lovell says they can’t bring a body where they’re going. The boy then points to the books, written in English, that are under his bed.
This passage introduces the magical silver bars that will be a prominent aspect of the novel. In this case, Lovell uses the silver bar to revive the boy, suggesting that the bars have the capacity, at the very least, to heal people. Notably, Lovell arrives just after the boy’s mother has died and just in time to save the boy. Based on what happens here, Lovell could appear to be a kind of hero for saving the boy, but the novel will ask more questions later about Lovell’s motivations in this scene.
Themes
A plague, which later comes to be known as Asiatic Cholera, has been making its way through Canton. The plague kills almost everyone who comes in contact with it, including the boy’s mother, the boy’s family, and Miss Elizabeth (“Betty”) Slate, who had served as a kind of caretaker for the boy. The boy never knew who paid Miss Betty or why she was there, but she spoke to him exclusively in English. The boy became fluent in the language through those conversations and through the books he read.
The boy has been raised in somewhat mysterious circumstances, considering that he was brought up with an English housekeeper who spoke to him exclusively in English, and he received a steady supply of books in English. Those circumstances suggest that it’s not an accident or coincidence that the boy has become fluent in English at such a young age.
Themes
The day after Professor Lovell finds the boy, the boy wakes up in a well-lit room. A cheerful woman named Mrs. Piper looks after him. Professor Lovell comes to see him. While Professor Lovell is there, he takes out a silver bar. The boy has seen bars like it before, but he doesn’t know exactly what they are. His mother said they contained trapped demons, and Miss Betty said they were witchcraft. Professor Lovell drops the bar on the boy’s lap. At Lovell’s insistence, the boy reads the inscriptions on the bar. One side reads húlún tūn zǎo. The other side features the English translation, “to accept without thinking.” The boy’s throat then swells up, and he tastes dates. When Lovell asks if the boy tastes anything, and he says dates, Lovell says that that is a good sign.
This passage shows that the silver bars do more than just heal people. In this case, the boy experiences a mysterious reaction once he says out loud both words inscribed on the bar. Lovell’s reaction of approval when the boy says he tastes dates shows that Lovell is pleased by what the boy has done or is experiencing. Lovell’s comfort with the silver bar is very different from the skepticism exhibited by the people the boy grew up with, suggesting that there may be a significant gap between the culture the boy grew up in and the one in which Lovell lives.
Themes
Professor Lovell says he wants to bring the boy back with him to London. There, the boy will receive the best education “that one can afford.” The boy asks Professor Lovell why he wants him, and Professor Lovell points to the silver bar. He says he wants the boy because of what the boy can do with the silver. He gives the boy a two-page document and says that the terms of his guardianship are in the contract. The boy can take his time to read it. Professor Lovell says that the boy will also need a name. The boy says he has a name, but Professor Lovell says he needs one that people in England can pronounce. The boy says Miss Betty once called him Robin, and he takes Swift as a surname from the author of Gulliver’s Travels.
Notably, Lovell says that when he brings the boy back to England, the boy will receive the best education “one can afford.” That description explicitly links money and education and suggests that the quality of one’s education is determined by the amount of money one has. That highlights the idea that, at least in Lovell’s view or in Lovell’s society, the best education is reserved for those with the most wealth and privilege. Lovell’s insistence that the boy must choose a different name shows that Lovell pushes to erase the boy’s connection to his culture and family.
Themes
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Robin, Professor Lovell, and Mrs. Piper go to the docks to board a ship bound for London. When they arrive, they find a laborer having a dispute with a man, who is barring the laborer from boarding the ship. The laborer is Chinese, and the man on the ship speaks English. Professor Lovell pushes Robin forward and tells him to help translate to resolve the issue. The laborer shows Robin his contract, which is in English. It says that the laborer has paid for passage to England.
The title of the novel, Babel, comes from the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. In that story, God gives the people of Earth different languages to speak to make it more difficult for them to work together so that their power doesn’t rival God’s. That story suggests that speaking different languages necessarily drives people apart. In this scene, Robin acts as a translator, and it remains to be seen whether he will use his capacity as a translator to bring people together or to divide them.
Themes
In English, Robin tells the man barring the laborer’s entry to the ship that the laborer has a contract that should take him to England. The man responds that he isn’t going to let any Chinese people onto the ship because they are dirty and spread lice. Robin turns back to the laborer but isn’t sure what to say. Eventually, Robin tells him that his contract is no good. The laborer asks Robin what he means, and Robin repeats that the laborer’s contract is no good. The laborer is frustrated but ultimately walks away resigned.
Robin encounters racism as soon as he interacts with English people, and that racism will become a major concern of the novel. Notably, in this scene, when confronted with that racism, Robin doesn’t stand up for the person being oppressed. Instead, he sides with the English person on the ship, thereby becoming complicit in injustice in order to avoid challenging the established power structure.
Themes
Robin, Mrs. Piper, and Professor Lovell then board the ship. During the journey, Professor Lovell confirms that he had been the one paying Miss Betty, but he doesn’t explain why. Professor Lovell also makes it clear that he once knew Robin’s mother. Professor Lovell asks what happened to the boy’s family and says that when he knew them previously, they were wealthy. Robin says that he heard that his uncle lost everything in the opium houses. On the trip, Robin does his best to follow Professor Lovell’s command to speak only in English. One day, Mrs. Piper wakes Robin up early in the morning. On the horizon, Robin sees London, which is the seat of the British Empire as well as the largest and wealthiest city in the world.
In this passage, one of the novel’s earlier mysteries—who was paying Miss Betty—gets cleared up. However, Lovell pointedly doesn’t reveal why he had been paying Miss Betty or why he had, apparently, been trying to ensure that Robin would become fluent in English. Lovell also introduces another mystery when he makes it clear that he knew Robin’s mother. This passage also explicitly links Robin’s family’s downfall to opium, a fact that will be important as the novel continues.
Themes
