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Chapter 7
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Talented Mr. Ripley, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Obsession, Identity, and Imitation
Wealth, Luxury, and Excess
Appearance vs. Reality
Escapes
Summary
Analysis
From his hotel room, Tom, sick with an upset stomach, observes Dickie and Marge as they make their way down a nearby street. Tom “curses himself for being heavy-handed,” and decides to wait a few days before resuming contact and attempting to “make Dickie like him,” though he wants that “more than anything else in the world.”
Tom’s desperate need for Dickie to like him intensifies in tandem with his feeling of being trapped in his hotel room. Watching Dickie and Marge together is already almost more than Tom can bear, and it sets a fire within him.
Themes
