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Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Such a Fun Age, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
External Behavior vs. Internal Truth
White Guilt, Ignorance, and Redemption
The Quest for Meaning
Race, Class, and Privilege
Summary
Analysis
Mrs. Chamberlain has started acting differently, and Emira knows it’s because of the Market Depot incident. Mrs. Chamberlain’s new “forced casualness” makes Emira feel uncomfortable. All of a sudden, Mrs. Chamberlain is returning home early and making a show of taking an active interest in Emira’s life. Two weeks after the Market Depot incident, Mrs. Chamberlain hands Emira her bimonthly payment envelope. This time, it contains $1200—twice Emira’s normal payment—and a handwritten thank you note written on card stock. Emira immediately uses a couple hundred dollars to buy herself her first leather jacket.
The fact that Emira still calls Alix “Mrs. Chamberlain” after working for her for so long shows that, despite Alix’s attempts at friendliness, Emira doesn’t see Alix as anything more than an employer. Their class backgrounds and unequal positions of power maintains a distance between them. And though Alix is trying to be nice and compensate Emira for the Market Depot trauma, the bonus paycheck only reaffirms the financial power she wields over Emira.
Themes
Emira is on the subway to meet her friends for dinner that night when she runs into Kelley. With his lanky frame, prominent chin, and dark hair, he’s cuter than she remembered. Kelley recognizes Emira right away and admits to writing—but not sending—six emails to her. He asks if she quit her nanny job and is surprised when Emira admits that she hasn’t. Emira tells him that her employers “took care of [her],” though. Feeling a boost of confidence from her hefty paycheck, Emira tells Kelley he can buy her a drink at Luca’s, the club where she’s meeting her friends that night, if he wants.
Much like Alix, Kelley Copeland has been expending considerably more emotional labor on the Market Depot incident than Emira has. Readers don’t yet have too much reason to suspect that Kelley has ulterior motives for being so concerned, but he does seem discernably overconcerned about helping Emira, perhaps to assuage some sense of guilt he has about his race and class privilege.
Themes
Emira meets up with her friends at Luca’s. Shaunie reserves a balcony with bottle service—Shaunie’s parents are rich, and Shaunie is very generous with her money. Josefa, Shaunie’s roommate, is unreliable—she either wants to stay in and scroll through her phone or be out drinking until morning. She’s a research assistant at Drexel and pursuing her second master’s degree; her parents have agreed to support her as long as she’s going to school.
Class difference is constantly on Emira’s mind, even as she socializes with her friends. This suggests that people whose class puts them at a disadvantage have more class consciousness than people whose class privilege allows them to succeed. The broader implication of this is that privileged people remain ignorant to the ways their privilege benefits them at the expense of others.
Themes
Emira checks her phone obsessively to see if Kelley has emailed her. He finally arrives awhile later—accompanied by four Black friends. They make introductions. After Kelley and his friends leave to get drinks, Zara critiques Emira for pursuing a white guy when she criticized Zara for the same thing the other night. Zara settles down, and Emira’s friends all agree that Kelley is attractive—though Josefa questions why all of his friends are Black. Emira insinuates that Josefa (who is Latina) should ask herself why all her friends are Black. Josefa retorts that her DNA test results show that she’s actually 11% West African. Anyway, she’s mostly worried that Kelley might fetishize Black people. Zara agrees to support Emira, though, and claims one of Kelley’s friends to dance with.
Emira and her friends find something comical in the fact that Kelley, a white guy who’s apparently (and stereotypically) wealthy and hip enough to shop at the ultra-white Market Depot, shows up at a club surrounded by Black men—especially after he’s showed signs that he’s interested in pursuing Emira, a Black woman. Could there be some truth to Josefa’s joke about Kelley fetishizing Black people?
Themes
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Sometime later, Kelley, calling Emira “miss,” reminds Emira that he owes her a drink, and they make their way down to the bar. He asks her about the Market Depot incident some more. She tells him about her other work—she’s a transcriptionist and does clerical work for the Green Party Philadelphia office. Kelley won’t stop asking questions, and Emira feels like she’s in a job interview. But Emira is feeling tipsy and outspoken, and she doesn’t hold back. She asks Kelley if he works in HR or something and reminds him about how he told her she could write an op-ed the other night. Kelley seems embarrassed and asks if he’s an asshole. Emira says he probably is, but it’s okay. They take a cab back to Kelley’s place.
Kelley continues to badger Emira about the Market Depot incident, even after she’s made it clear that she’s not interested in discussing it. Like Alix, Kelley purports to only want what’s best for Emira—yet in acting as though he knows what’s best for Emira more than Emira herself, he’s infantilizing her and disregarding her needs, wants, and inner experiences. Still, for all Kelley’s annoying traits, Emira seems interested enough in him to accompany him back to his place.
Themes
Kelley’s apartment smells clean and is full of nice furniture. He and Emira are both drunk, and they start to kiss. Kelley asks how old Emira is—she’s 25 and he’s 32—and when she tells him, the age difference makes him a little uncomfortable, but Emira tells him it’s fine. Kelley gives Emira oral sex. She insinuates that she doesn’t want to return the favor when he’s done, but Kelley is fine with it.
Kelley’s apartment evokes a minimalist aesthetic similar to Alix’s. With this, on top of his and Alix’s shared desire for Emira to seek justice for the Market Depot incident, the novel seems to want to play up their similarities. Its reasons for doing so, though, remain a mystery.
Themes
Afterward, Emira asks for “an Uber and a snack.” Kelley agrees to arrange for an Uber, but he tells her she has to give him her number if she wants a snack. Emira laughs and agrees. As she waits for the Uber, she looks through Kelley’s record collection, which includes the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack and some Otis Redding albums. She comments on this, and Kelley jokes that he “ha[s] the music tastes of a middle-aged black woman.” Emira rolls her eyes at the comment, but Kelley doesn’t notice. Emira looks at a blueprint map of Allentown, Pennsylvania hanging on Kelley’s wall and wonders if she knows someone from Allentown—the name sounds familiar. Emira doesn’t know it, but the blueprint displays the place where, in 2000, Kelley “completely ruined Alex Murphy’s senior year”—before she became Alix Chamberlain, that is.
Kelley’s stereotypically Black taste in music—combined with his self-awareness about this quirk—raises another red flag. It’s becoming less of a stretch to believe that he really does fetishize Black people and Black culture. This seems to annoy Emira, but again, she’s seemingly so used to white people annoying her or putting her out in daily life that she decides to ignore it. This scene also shows that the novel has indeed been playing up Kelley and Alix’s similarities, revealing that they aren’t only similar but have been personally acquainted with each other in a meaningful (and apparently traumatic) way, albeit many years ago. Finally, there’s probably more to the story of how and why Alix came to change her name, but this remains a mystery for now.
Themes
