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On Beauty and Being Wrong: Chapter 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in On Beauty, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Nature of Beauty
Politics in Academia
Race and Identity
The Value of Family
Summary
Analysis
When Howard left, 20 minutes earlier, he started heading for a neighborhood called Cricklewood that he feels will always resist gentrification. He goes to a house he hasn’t been to for four years: that of his father, Harold. Howard walks inside and finds the house exactly as he remembered it, with elaborately patterned wallpaper and carpeting and with the TV on.
This chapter reveals some important information about Howard’s background that he mostly keeps hidden from the rest of the world. While Howard might seem like someone who has always been in academia, in fact, he comes from a working-class family. This chapter gives new context to Howard’s past actions, showing how his academic language and investment in abstract theories might all be ways of hiding his working-class background.
Themes
Harold begins to cry when he sees Howard. Harold is confused at first and doesn’t understand any of Howard’s questions about Carol, the woman who stops by to help Harold sometimes but whose actual job is unclear. Harold’s wife (Howard’s mother) Joan has been dead for a long time. Howard imagines what life would be like if he’d never left and gone to university and had simply grown up as a butcher’s son.
When Howard looks at his father, he is not only imagining what it would be like to live as a butcher—he is also imagining what it would be like to live without a wife. As strained as Howard’s relationship with Kiki is at the moment, Howard doesn’t want to become his father, alone and needing strangers like Carol to come take care of him.
Themes
Harold properly introduces Howard to Carol. Howard is annoyed because he already pays for a nurse for Harold, and Carol seems to be religious and trying to preach to Harold. Carol serves them both tea. When Howard gets up to grab food from the kitchen, he accidentally knocks something off a shelf. He picks it up and realizes it’s A Room with a View by E. M. Forster.
The appearance of A Room with a View is yet another reference to Forster. The novel’s title perhaps relates ironically to Harold, since Harold seems to spend most of his time in a room where the only thing to view is the television.
Themes
Howard asks Harold if the book belongs to him, but Harold figures it must be Carol’s. Harold recalls how Joan always used to read. Harold tries to tell Howard a story, but he keeps meandering, and Howard gets impatient. Eventually, the two of them watch television together.
As an academic, Howard aligns himself with books and sees television as beneath him. Nevertheless, after spending more time with Harold, he agrees to watch some television, suggesting that he is open to compromise and trying to find some common ground with his father.
Themes
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Harold asks Howard if he’s feeling alright, and Howard does something unusual by telling his father the truth: that his marriage with Kiki might be over. Harold tries to console him that a 30-year marriage doesn’t dissolve overnight. Howard is touched at first—until Harold says that Kiki probably found a new Black man to be with. Howard gets angry and leaves.
This chapter ends with Howard remembering why his previous attempts to connect with Harold have failed—Harold is too fundamentally different from his son. For all Howard’s own failures to live up to his ideals, he nevertheless would never make openly racist comments like the one Harold makes about Kiki. And so, this visit is as much about Howard’s past as it is about Howard also realizing how much he values Kiki.
Themes
