Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Autobiography of Red, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Creativity
Communication and Mystery
Time
Self and World
Summary
Analysis
Geryon is sociable despite being a monster. He and the yellowbeard take a taxi to the man’s talk. Geryon notices the man’s thigh brushing against his own as the car bounds down the busy streets. The yellowbeard tells Geryon about researching law codes in Spain, explaining that he’s interested in how people decide what laws are just. His favorite law code is Hammurabi because it’s so ethically unambiguous. As an example, he offers the law that says stealing during a fire is punishable by being thrown in the fire.
It appears that self-doubt is mostly what inhibits Geryon from overcoming his loneliness. People regularly approach him, but he assumes they will be put off by his monstrosity and so assumes an identity characterized by social alienation and loneliness. Hammurabi’s code is an example of lex talionis, an ancient law of retribution. The colloquial phrase “an eye for an eye” is often used to explain the system, which, in broad terms, requires a person who commits a crime to suffer a punishment equal to the original crime they committed. Hammurabi’s code should appeal to Geryon, too, since its logic relies upon a stable, fixed definition of truth and justice with little room for misunderstanding or interpretation.
Themes
Geryon and the yellowbeard arrive at the University of Buenos Aires. They head to the Faculty Lounge, which is mostly unfurnished due to the university’s lack of money. Outside the lounge, a banner reads, “Help Us Keep Track of Professors Detained or Disappeared.” Geryon suddenly remembers seeing captured beluga whales as a child. He had nightmares about the whales in his bedroom that night. Geryon turns to the yellowbeard and asks, “What is time made of?” The yellowbeard tells Geryon that time is “an abstraction” that humans “impose on motion,” but Geryon is dissatisfied with this answer.
Geryon’s memory of the beluga whales reveals that his fixation on captivity and freedom has persisted into adulthood. Geryon is dissatisfied with the yellowbeard’s answer that time is “an abstraction” that humans “impose on motion” because it’s theoretical and unconcerned with the actual experience of living in time. It arguably doesn’t matter that time is an abstraction if someone is consciously, unavoidably experiencing time. Furthermore, the yellowbeard’s answer fails to account for mortality, an unavoidable consequence of time that is at the heart of Geryon’s anxieties surrounding it.
Themes
Geryon and the yellowbeard make their way into a classroom where yellowbeard delivers his talk. Geryon tries to pay attention to the yellowbeard’s lecture about Pascal, but his thoughts wander to his mother. He remembers a winter afternoon when he and his mother had watched the day turn into night. The yellowbeard talks about black and white, and Geryon resolves to “get some new information about red.” Geryon soon grows bored and wonders if the day will ever be over, which is “his favorite question.”
Geryon’s memory of his mother seems to come as a consequence of thinking about time. Watching the sky transform the world from day to night encapsulates what time is made of, more so than the yellowbeard’s answer about time being an “abstraction.” Geryon’s decision to learn more about the color red signifies a decision to settle on a clearer sense of self.
Themes
