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The Anatomy Lesson: Chapter 7
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
At the Bus Stop, Claire sees only a few other white people, and none are her age. A young Black woman starts reciting a poem about African beauty. Many of Claire’s students, particularly Zora, complain that the poem is awful because it’s “cheesy.” Chantelle tentatively tries to defend the poet. Claire tries to encourage her students to give more constructive criticism. Ron mocks the poet in a way that Claire feels borders on racist, but Zora laughs hardest of all.
Claire remains haunted by her fading importance, and the increasingly diverse crowd at the Bus Stop seems to confirm Claire’s fears of becoming irrelevant. Claire thought perhaps she could stay current by keeping up with young Black poets, but Zora’s dismissal of the woman on stage shows that even the young poets Claire likes might be irrelevant.
Themes
The poet on stage goes on for over 10 more minutes, and the crowd starts getting restless and louder. Doc Brown, the MC, says there will be many more poets to come and that they’ll vote on a winner at the end. Claire struggles to enjoy the next few poets, particularly when some boys of Caribbean heritage do spoken word about macho “street life” stories. As Claire gets bored, she looks at Zora and is surprised by her resemblance to Howard.
Doc Brown is the name of a character from the Back to the Future movies, but perhaps even more relevantly, it is the stage name of Zadie Smith’s brother. The MC here seems to be a tribute to Smith’s brother. As Claire continues to see more about the current state of poetry, like the “street life” stories, she experiences even greater fears of becoming irrelevant.
Themes
Claire wonders why she decided to blow up her whole life over Howard, a man she wasn’t even attracted to. In their three-week affair, they only ever had sex furtively, and never in a bedroom. Howard ended the affair before either of them even really acknowledged it had begun. Part of Claire wanted to laugh that Howard was caught with a condom—she had actually told him not to use that condom after he brought it, since she was past menopause.
While Howard claims that physicality was the main reason for his affair with Claire, Claire believes that she wasn’t even attracted to Howard. It’s possible that Claire is lying to herself about being attracted to Howard and doesn’t want to admit it, or perhaps Howard’s interest helped Claire deal with her feelings of irrelevance as a poet or her anxieties about aging.
Themes
Claire wonders if young women of Zora’s generation are still as conflicted as her, feeling one thing but doing another. Just then, Levi gets up to the stage with his friends. Zora is nervous, but Daisy tries to console her that maybe Levi is just the “hype man,” a term Zora doesn’t know.
This passage reveals one of the issues at the heart of Claire’s conflict with Zora—that as much as the two of them disagree on topics like literary theory, perhaps Claire’s real fear is that Zora and her generation will displace Claire (unlike, for example Chantilly, who is young but seems more interested in continuing Claire’s traditions).
Themes
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The boys on stage play a tape with a loud Caribbean beat and all start talking, with one in the lead speaking Creole and others, like Levi, hyping him up. Eventually, Levi takes the microphone for a chorus in English and does a couplet about corruption and greed. Claire translates the Creole as much as she can and says it seems to be a poem protesting American involvement in Haiti.
Creole is a hybrid language that sometimes arises in places where different cultures intermingle. Haitian Creole is based mostly on French, but it incorporates influences from other languages around the world. Like Zora often does, here, Levi gets passionate about a topic he didn’t know anything about until recently, although he expresses his interests very differently than Zora.
Themes
Claire leaves to smoke a cigarette, and Zora joins her. Zora says she wishes Levi’s act was good, but it seemed like they were trying too hard. As they’re talking, Ron comes out and tells them they have to come see this poet who is blowing away everyone in the crowd.
Like Howard, Zora prefers to think in abstract rather than practical terms, and so she finds the direct political nature of Levi’s act kind of embarrassing. This short break gives Claire and Zora an opportunity to realize that the two of them aren’t as different as they think, with each feeling slightly out of place at the Bus Stop.
Themes
Claire and Zora come back down to the basement and see that Carl is on stage performing. Zora says she knows him, surprising Ron and Claire. When Ron is done, everyone cheers, except for a handful of people voting for other poets. Doc Brown, the MC, even goes on stage to congratulate him. Claire goes to praise Carl’s talent, causing some members of her class to cringe. Claire asks if he’d be interested in “refining” what he does. She explains her class to Carl and asks him to come attend her class as a guest. Carl is in such a good mood after winning that he agrees to come.
Carl gets such a positive reaction because he seems to be one of the few people who can successfully bridge the gap between so-called high and low art, offering something a performance that reads as authentic to both Levi and Claire. Claire’s eagerness to recruit Carl suggests her real motive: that by training Carl, she can take some credit for his success and become relevant once more.
Themes
