Previous
Part 5, Chapter 7
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
When Somerset visits Elliott a few days later, he’s excited to have received his invitation to Edna’s party. Elliott fully intends to go and shows Somerset the outfit he plans to wear. The next morning, Somerset hears that Elliott has taken another turn for the worse. Somerset sends a telegram to Isabel and Gray, asking them to come immediately. Because they’re on vacation, they don’t get the telegram for a few days but say they’ll come at once. Elliott rallies and is still alive a few days later. Somerset goes to see him and asks if Elliott would like to see a priest. Elliott looks at Somerset. “D’you mean to say I’m going to die?” Elliott asks, shaken. Somerset says it’s just to be on the safe side, but both he and Elliott understand how grave the situation is.
As Elliott approaches death, Somerset is the only one to keep him company. While Elliott once gave and attended countless lavish parties, none of the hundreds, if not thousands, of guests who went to those parties over the years seeks Elliott out as he approaches death. Elliott’s relative solitude at death signals just how much of a dead end his pursuit of social status has been, especially considering that his social eminence disappeared even before he died. By showing the farcical nature of Somerset’s quest to get an invitation to Edna’s party for Elliott, and then by depicting Elliott’s excitement at the false invitation, the novel demonstrates that Elliott’s obsession with status is, in the end, comic at best and nonsensical, pitiable, or meaningless at worst.
Themes
Somerset thinks that it’s a horrible thing to have to tell someone what he just told Elliott. The bishop himself comes to receive Elliott’s final confession, and Elliott says it’s an honor he didn’t expect. The bishop hears his confession, and through the door, Somerset hears the bishop saying the prayers that the Church reserves for those who are dying. When the bishop leaves, Somerset walks him to his car. Before he turns to go, the bishop says Elliot’s deficiencies were superficial; “he was generous of heart and kindly toward his fellow men.”
The bishop says that Elliott’s shortcomings were superficial, a comment that reflects the relationship that Elliott has cultivated with the Catholic Church over decades of sizeable donations. The novel implies that Elliott has essentially bribed himself into high standing in the church, something that he has hoped will increase his social status more on earth and will even carry over into the afterlife.
Themes
