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
It’s Saturday morning in Lima. Geryon stands on the roof of the house, surrounded by chimneys and clotheslines. Ancash joins him, but their eyes don’t meet. Last night, he, Geryon, and Herakles slept on the roof in sleeping bags. Ancash’s mother has the roof divided into separate living spaces; there’s a library, separate sleeping spaces, and a ladder leading down to the kitchen. In another corner of the roof, Ancash’s mother grows marijuana to sell and herbs to cook with.
The literally compartmentalized layout of the roof symbolizes the alienation and loneliness Geryon feels from being the third wheel on this spontaneous trip to Peru.
Themes
Ancash stands beside Geryon and stares down at the city. Traffic fills the streets, and Geryon can hear dogs howling. Geryon remarks how life here seems much slower. Ancash agrees, stating that Argentinians always have somewhere they need to be. Their conversation ends when the electrical cord that stretches across the roof sparks violently. Ancash attributes this to someone turning on the kettle in the kitchen. Suddenly, Herakles appears at the bottom of the ladder, a papaya in his hand, juice running down his face and chest.
Geryon’s remark about the slowness of Peru resonates with the book’s broader exploration of time. It’s striking to Geryon that Peruvians seem unhurried because his impulse is to take every action he can to organize, control, and understand it. This is evidenced by his impulse to constantly photograph his life, breaking down units of time into intentional, composed frames. Herakles’s sudden, erotic presence with mango juice dripping down his bare chest interrupts a possibly intimate interaction between Ancash and Geryon. For all Herakles’s proclamations of freedom, he certainly appears determined to control the fun others are allowed to have.
Themes
Herakles asks Geryon if he’s seen the roomful of parrots at the front of the house. The birds are enormous. Last week, apparently, one killed the cat belonging to Marguerite, the wife of the wealthy American for whom Ancash’s mother works. Ancash suggests that guerillas might also have killed the cat. He recalls how they did this in Huaraz one weekend, as “a gesture.” Ancash and Herakles disappear into the house to get some duct tape to fix the faulty wire. Geryon remains behind, feeling cold and hungry. He wonders what he’s doing here in Lima.
The parrots are yet another example of a winged creature the novel introduces to act as a stand-in for the red-winged Geryon. Here, perhaps, the captivity of these wild, beautiful birds in a house reflects Geryon’s anxieties about being trapped. His fears have likely been reinvigorated by reuniting with Herakles, whom he still loves. At the same time, reuniting with Herakles has resulted in a sharp dip in Geryon’s mood and sense of self. Now more than ever, his desire for Herakles traps him in a cage, because as an adult, he’s more discerning of how the relationship is harmful to him.
Themes
