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Part 3, Chapter 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Razor’s Edge, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Wisdom and the Meaning of Life
Social Norms and Conformity
Trauma and Self-Destruction
Snobbishness, Social Status, and Cosmopolitanism
Truth and the Problem of Evil
Summary
Analysis
Isabel marries Gray Maturin a year or so after she breaks off her engagement with Larry. A year after the marriage, she gives birth to a daughter, Joan. Two years after that, she has a second daughter, Priscilla. Henry Maturin promotes Gray to partner in his firm, which has never been so successful. “They’re making money hand over fist,” Elliott tells Somerset. Elliott himself seems to be going out of style during that time. Both in London and Paris, he no longer receives invitations to the most exclusive parties, and people seem to find Elliott “tiresome and ridiculous,” a relic of an older and outdated era.
By marrying Gray, Isabel seems to have gotten everything that she had been looking for, including substantial wealth within a community she finds interesting and is comfortable in. Notably, Elliott’s lifelong goal of achieving social status is shown to be subject to the whims of trends and fashions, highlighting the novel’s idea that social status is a difficult thing to stake the meaning of one’s life on, as it seems to come and go outside of any individual’s control.
Themes
