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Part 4, 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
On the street in Paris one day, a tall man with an unkempt mop of brown hair and a thick beard smiles at Somerset. “You don’t remember me?” the man asks. Somerset says he’s never seen the man in his life. The man then tells Somerset his name: Larry. “Good God!” Somerset says and invites Larry to have a drink. Somerset notices that Larry’s pants are tattered, and he has holes in his coat. Larry says he’s just come back to Paris from India. Somerset tells Larry that Isabel is also in Paris, and Larry says he would love to see her. Somerset says that before he does, it might be best if he gets a haircut and a new set of clothes.
Larry’s tattered clothes and unkempt appearance signal that, in the past 10 years, he has been on a journey that has significantly changed him, rendering him almost unrecognizable (both literally and metaphorically) from the person he was before. Notably, the novel distinguishes here between Larry’s willingness to meet superficial social expectations by buying new clothes and getting a haircut and his rejection of society’s pre-established paths, which represent the kind of conformity that Larry has never seemed willing to accept.
Themes
