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Chapter 13
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
Every three years, University College (the part of Oxford to which Ramy, Robin, Victoire, and Letty belong) throws an extravagant ball. Letty pushes them all to go and says it will be fun. She invites Victoire to come to London with her to get a dress, but Victoire says the tailors there wouldn’t let her in their stores unless she pretended to be Letty’s servant. Letty offers to let Victoire borrow a dress and also persuades Ramy and Robin to go to the ball.
When Letty pushes her cohort to go to a ball, she displays her characteristic desire to be part of a group of friends but also an obliviousness to the discrimination and oppression her friends face. This is underlined by Victoire’s comments that she wouldn’t be allowed into stores in London because she is Black, a comment that seems to catch Letty off guard.
Themes
During the ball, Ramy, Robin, Victoire, and Letty stand together. Colin, who lives at Magpie Lane with Ramy and Robin, walks up to the group and treats Victoire as if she is working at the party. Ramy and Robin tell Victoire to ignore Colin and say he’s an idiot. Another boy approaches and asks Letty to dance. One of Elton’s friends then comes up to the group and asks Victoire to dance. Not long after, Ramy and Robin notice a commotion in a corner of the room.
Colin again displays his characteristic racism. His presence at the party serves to show how thoroughly racism permeates Oxford society. It also makes it clear that there is nowhere that Ramy, Robin, and Victoire can go at Oxford where they will be reliably safe from discrimination. The novel also shows how the discrimination Victoire faces as a Black woman is different from the discrimination that Robin or Ramy face as men who are also people of color.
Themes
When Robin and Ramy go to see what is happening, they find Elton and his friends leering at Victoire and Letty while making lewd comments. Ramy takes Victoire and Letty away, while Robin faces Elton. The two exchange words, and Elton calls Robin a racist slur. Robin wants to fight, but there is a prohibition against fighting at Oxford, and Robin isn’t sure how things would go if it were his word against Elton’s. Eventually, Robin walks away. When he goes outside, he finds Ramy, Letty, and Victoire. Ramy says what happened is Letty’s fault for pushing them to go to the ball. Victoire says it’s no one’s fault, but that she knew she shouldn’t have gone to the ball. They don’t want the night to be over, though, and they decide to go on the roof of Babel, just the four of them.
In this passage, both Letty and Victoire are subject to misogyny and sexism. The novel underlines how in addition to the misogyny that Letty faces, Victoire also faces racism. At the same time, while Robin isn’t subjected to the same sexism as Letty and Victoire, he is subjected to racism from Elton. With that in mind, the characters’ experiences in this passage highlight how the various aspects of Letty, Victoire, and Robin’s identities lead the three of them to have unique experiences of privilege and oppression. Notably, Victoire speaks up to defend Letty and ensure she isn’t blamed for the behavior of racist people at the ball, showing that she is willing to act in solidarity with Letty even in difficult moments.
Themes
When Robin and his cohort go to Babel, they find a gathering of Babel students and postgraduates already in progress in the lobby. They join the party and have a fun time for the rest of the night. Near the end of the night, Robin sits with Letty on the stairs. She starts crying and asks Robin why Ramy doesn’t want to be with her. Robin can think of several reasons. Perhaps it’s because Ramy knows that, as a person of color, dating a White woman would be forbidden. Or perhaps Ramy simply doesn’t like Letty in the way Letty likes him. Robin doesn’t say either of those ideas to Letty, though. After the party, Robin, Ramy, Letty, and Victoire walk through a nearby graveyard. There, they find Evie Brooke’s grave. She died five years ago.
Letty again shows that she is oblivious to the pressures and discrimination that Victoire, Robin, and Ramy face as people of color in a profoundly racist environment. In this case, Letty asks Robin why Ramy isn’t romantically interested in her without seeming to consider the risk that Ramy would put himself in if he were to date a White woman as a person of color. Robin’s reluctance to broach that topic with Letty is telling. It suggests that he either thinks Letty would be unwilling to take what Robin has to say seriously or that she wouldn’t understand what he would try to tell her.
Themes
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