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Pages 44-55
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Tropic of Cancer, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Literature and Artistic Freedom
The United States vs. Europe
Friendship, Loneliness, and Art
Hunger, Sex, and the Human Condition
Summary
Analysis
Henry professes that he never wants to return to America, preferring poverty in Europe. Recently, Henry met a Russian named Serge in the street, who asked him to help unload some barrels of insecticide. When Serge discovered that Henry knew English, he eagerly enlisted him to teach English lessons. He goes out to Serge’s house, where a large group is assembled, and they have a feast. Serge gives Henry a bug-ridden mattress to sleep on. Henry gets a ride back into Paris and leaves Serge, not telling him that he has no plan to return. He wanders around Paris, taking in the squalid street life. He sees Peckover, a coworker from the newspaper he works on. Peckover complains of having to work long hours to afford a pair of false teeth. Henry manages to squeeze some money out of him for a meal.
The episode with Serge further contributes to the picaresque character of the novel, in which strange and outlandish characters are encountered randomly and function as the center of one scene before disappearing entirely, never to be mentioned again. Peckover’s false teeth recall Van Norden’s lost false teeth in an earlier scene, compounding the sense of a society that has grown weak and artificial.
Themes
In the bathroom of the restaurant, Henry finds tickets to an orchestral concert that day. He goes to the concert, remarking on the rich, perfumed, and bored patrons who fill the hall. He sees the classical music performances as a kind of self-inflicted punishment by people who care about status but not music. Henry, on the other hand, is extremely alert due to his hunger, and the music has an overwhelming effect on him, which he describes in flights of poetic rapture.
Henry’s attitude here is unfair to the fellow patrons; there’s no way for him to know the quality of their experience of the music, yet he assumes that he alone has been transported to rapturous heights by it. The caustic commentary in this episode reveals Henry’s misanthropy and ungenerous attitude towards conventional people.
Themes
Soon, however, Henry notices once again the blank and often sleeping faces of the other attendees, and his own mind begins to wander, on subjects like what sex feels like for the female partner. He decides that the fat and wealthy patrons are entitled to sleep through the concert if they want to. The final piece, by Ravel, is electrifying but fails to carry its energy through to the conclusion, disappointing Henry. He reflects that “Art consists in going the full length.” Soon, he slips once again into a surrealistic dream.
