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Part 3, Chapter 4
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
At first, Somerset doesn’t realize how dire the market crash is. But when he sees Elliott that Christmas in the Riviera, Elliott says that Henry Maturin has died and Gray is financially ruined. Henry hadn’t believed the New York market crash was serious and kept his clients’ money invested. He lost everything overnight and later had a heart attack from the stress. Gray lost even more money and declared bankruptcy. The family turned over their assets, including their houses, to the bank, and Isabel sold her jewelry. Elliott tells Somerset that he took all of his money out of the stock market, at the urging of the Catholic church, just before the crash, so he lost nothing. Elliott also tells Somerset that His Holiness reinstated his family title as a descendent of a Count, a title that Elliott has never mentioned before and that Somerset knows nothing about.
The stock market crash hits Isabel and Gray especially hard. In this chapter, the novel argues that wealth, unlike the kind of spiritual meaning Larry seeks, is fickle, unpredictable, and fleeting. While Isabel chose Gray to marry over Larry as the “safe” pick because she wanted financial security in a community she was familiar with, the novel suggests here that Isabel’s choice to marry Gray might actually have been, perhaps counterintuitively, riskier than marrying Larry because Larry’s version of meaning is lasting and isn’t subject to the turbulence of the market or the whims of fashion. The novel also highlights Elliott’s attempts to curry favor (and status) through sizeable donations to the Catholic Church, which leads the Church to bestow upon Elliott what seems to be a made-up title.
Themes
Isabel writes to Elliott to tell him that his sister is ill. A month later, from Chicago, Elliott writes to Somerset to tell him that Mrs. Bradley has died. Her finances are in disarray, and Elliott stays in Chicago to try and help sort things out. Unable to find work, Gray has a nervous breakdown and begins having headaches that leave him incapacitated for 24 hours at a time. He and Isabel are in a disastrous financial situation. Seeing their struggles, Elliott offers to let them stay in his Paris apartment. Without many other options, Isabel and Gray accept. Elliott writes to Somerset that, as a result, he’ll be on the Riviera more often and hopes to see Somerset more frequently. Who could deny, Somerset thinks, that despite his snobbishness, Elliott really is a genuinely considerate and generous person?
The novel again shows the downsides of Isabel’s decision to choose safety and conformity over genuine love for Larry. The safety and wealth she had banked on quickly vanish, leaving her no better off socially or financially than if she had married Larry but also lacking the kind of love she would have had if she had chosen that path. Elliott’s decision to let Isabel and Gray stay in his Paris apartment seems to be motivated by genuine generosity, but it’s worth pointing out that Elliott most likely wouldn’t have asked them to stay in the apartment indefinitely if his own social life hadn’t dried up in Paris months before, leaving that apartment largely unoccupied.
Themes
