Autobiography of Red

by

Anne Carson

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Autobiography of Red makes teaching easy.

Geryon Character Analysis

The protagonist, Geryon, is based on the monster Herakles slew in Greek mythology. The Geryon of the novel is a red-winged monster who lives on an island called “the Red Place,” located somewhere in the Atlantic. Geryon is a shy, introspective boy who is ashamed of his monstrosity. Longing to fit in with the ordinary humans he lives among, Geryon avoids flying and hides his wings. Although Geryon is initially close with Geryon’s mother, she fails to protect him from his older brother’s sexual abuse. The abuse prompts Geryon to retreat inward, hiding his “inside” life from the “outside” world and inspiring him to create an autobiography, which ultimately takes the form of a photographic essay. When Geryon is 14, he meets an older, confident, and carefree boy named Herakles, and they become inseparable, eventually developing a sexual relationship. As Geryon spends more time with Herakles, he becomes rebellious and drifts further apart from his mother, eventually fleeing to Hades, Herakles’s hometown. Although Geryon loves Herakles, Herakles doesn’t reciprocate this love, valuing personal freedom over the “captivity” of being in a committed relationship. In Hades, Herakles’s grandmother shows Geryon a photograph she took of a volcanic eruption that decimated Hades in 1923. She, Herakles, and Geryon visit the active volcano, and volcanoes become an artistic and intellectual focus for Geryon. Herakles suddenly breaks up with Geryon toward the end of his stay, devastating Geryon. Geryon is 22 the next time he sees Herakles, when he unexpectedly runs into him and his new lover, Ancash, on a trip to Buenos Aires. Geryon realizes he still has feelings for Herakles and accepts an invitation to follow the couple to Peru to visit Ancash’s mother and see an active volcano in Jucu, a remote village. Although Geryon and Ancash compete for Herakles’s affections, they have similarly reserved, gentle demeanors that put them at odds with brash Herakles. Despite Geryon ultimately betraying Ancash by having sex with Herakles, they develop an intimate connection. Furthermore, when Ancash sees Geryon’s wings, he admires them, likening Geryon to a winged mythological creature from his indigenous Quechua culture. Ancash urges Geryon to “use those wings,” something Geryon hasn’t done in years. Geryon later flies over the active volcano Jucu, a gesture of both intimacy with Ancash and self-affirmation. Geryon’s flight also helps him see that he no longer loves Herakles, who has never given him the intimacy he desires.

Geryon Quotes in Autobiography of Red

The Autobiography of Red quotes below are all either spoken by Geryon or refer to Geryon. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Identity and Creativity Theme Icon
).
Red Meat: What Difference Did Stesichoros Make? Quotes

Adjectives seem fairly innocent additions but look again. These small imported mechanisms are in charge of attaching everything in the world to its place in particularity. They are the latches of being.

Related Characters: Geryon, Stesichoros
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:

For no reason that anyone can name, Stesichoros began to undo the latches. Stesichoros released being. All the substances in the world went floating up. Suddenly there was nothing to interfere with horses being hollow hooved. Or a river being root silver.

Related Characters: Geryon, Stesichoros
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

Once she said the meaning
it would stay.

Related Characters: Geryon, Geryon’s Mother, Geryon’s Brother, Geryon’s Grandmother
Page Number: 26
Explanation and Analysis:

Inside is mine, he thought.

Related Characters: Geryon (speaker), Geryon’s Brother, Geryon’s Grandmother
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

Up against another human being one’s own procedures take on definition.

Related Characters: Geryon, Herakles, Geryon’s Mother
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:

“How does distance look?” is a simple direct question. It extends from a spaceless
within to the edge
of what can be loved.

Related Characters: Geryon, Herakles, Geryon’s Mother
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

What if you took a fifteen-minute exposure of a man in jail, let’s say the lava
has just reached his window?
he asked. I think you are confusing subject and object, she said.
Very likely, said Geryon.

Related Characters: Geryon (speaker), Herakles’s Grandmother (speaker), Herakles
Related Symbols: Volcano 
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

All your designs are about captivity, it depresses me.

Related Characters: Herakles (speaker), Geryon
Page Number: 55
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

I am a drop of gold he would say
I am molten matter returned from the core of earth to tell you interior things

Related Characters: Herakles’s Grandmother (speaker), Lava Man (speaker), Geryon, Ancash
Related Symbols: Wings , Volcano 
Page Number: 59
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

Reality is a sound, you have to tune in to it not just keep yelling.

Related Characters: Geryon, Herakles
Page Number: 60
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

How do you think it feels
growing up in a house full
of empty fruit bowls? His voice was high.
His eyes met hers and they began
to laugh. They laughed
until tears ran down. Then they sat quiet. Drifted back
to opposite walls.

Related Characters: Geryon (speaker), Herakles, Geryon’s Mother, Geryon’s Brother
Page Number: 68-69
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24 Quotes

Geryon’s life entered a numb time, caught between the tongue and the taste.

Related Characters: Geryon, Herakles, Geryon’s Brother
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:

Yellow? said Geryon and he was thinking Yellow! Yellow! Even in dreams
he doesn’t know me at all! Yellow!

Related Characters: Geryon (speaker), Herakles
Related Symbols: Red, Wings
Page Number: 74
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

A man moves through time. It means nothing except that, like a harpoon, once thrown he will arrive.

Related Characters: Geryon
Page Number: 81
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

There is no person without a world.

Related Characters: Geryon, Geryon’s Brother
Page Number: 82
Explanation and Analysis:

It was not the fear of ridicule,
to which everyday life as a winged red person had accommodated Geryon early in life,
but this blank desertion of his own mind
that threw him into despair.

Related Characters: Geryon
Related Symbols: Red, Wings
Page Number: 83
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 29 Quotes

[…] Time isn’t made of anything. It is an abstraction.
Just a meaning that we
impose upon motion.

Related Characters: The Yellowbeard (speaker), Geryon
Page Number: 90
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

It is
because of her I began to notice moments of death. Children make you see distances.

Related Characters: Lazer (speaker), Geryon, Herakles’s Grandmother
Related Symbols: Volcano 
Page Number: 94
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 31 Quotes

You can’t be alive and think about nothing.

Related Characters: Geryon (speaker), Tango Singer
Page Number: 103
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32 Quotes

“…I will never know how you see red and you will never know how I see it.”

Related Characters: Geryon, Ancash
Related Symbols: Wings , Red
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 37 Quotes

I’m a master of monsters aren’t I?

Related Characters: Herakles (speaker), Geryon, Ancash
Related Symbols: Wings
Page Number: 129
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 38 Quotes

What Geryon was thinking Herakles never asked. In the space between them
developed a dangerous cloud.

Related Characters: Geryon, Herakles, Ancash, Ancash’s Mother
Related Symbols: Volcano 
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 39 Quotes

A volcano is not a mountain like others. Raising a camera to one’s face has effects
no one can calculate in advance.

Related Characters: Geryon, Herakles, Ancash, Ancash’s Mother
Related Symbols: Volcano 
Page Number: 135
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 45 Quotes

There is one thing I want from you.
Tell me.
Want to see you use those wings.

Related Characters: Geryon (speaker), Ancash (speaker), Herakles
Related Symbols: Wings , Volcano 
Page Number: 144
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 46 Quotes

This is for Ancash, he calls to the earth diminishing below. This is a memory of our
beauty.

Related Characters: Geryon (speaker), Herakles, Ancash
Related Symbols: Red, Wings , Volcano 
Page Number: 145
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 47 Quotes

We are amazing beings,
Geryon is thinking. We are neighbors of fire.
And now time is rushing towards them
where they stand side by side with arms touching, immortality on their faces, night at their back.

Related Characters: Geryon (speaker), Herakles, Ancash, Stesichoros
Related Symbols: Wings , Volcano 
Page Number: 146
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Autobiography of Red LitChart as a printable PDF.
Autobiography of Red PDF

Geryon Quotes in Autobiography of Red

The Autobiography of Red quotes below are all either spoken by Geryon or refer to Geryon. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Identity and Creativity Theme Icon
).
Red Meat: What Difference Did Stesichoros Make? Quotes

Adjectives seem fairly innocent additions but look again. These small imported mechanisms are in charge of attaching everything in the world to its place in particularity. They are the latches of being.

Related Characters: Geryon, Stesichoros
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:

For no reason that anyone can name, Stesichoros began to undo the latches. Stesichoros released being. All the substances in the world went floating up. Suddenly there was nothing to interfere with horses being hollow hooved. Or a river being root silver.

Related Characters: Geryon, Stesichoros
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

Once she said the meaning
it would stay.

Related Characters: Geryon, Geryon’s Mother, Geryon’s Brother, Geryon’s Grandmother
Page Number: 26
Explanation and Analysis:

Inside is mine, he thought.

Related Characters: Geryon (speaker), Geryon’s Brother, Geryon’s Grandmother
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

Up against another human being one’s own procedures take on definition.

Related Characters: Geryon, Herakles, Geryon’s Mother
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:

“How does distance look?” is a simple direct question. It extends from a spaceless
within to the edge
of what can be loved.

Related Characters: Geryon, Herakles, Geryon’s Mother
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

What if you took a fifteen-minute exposure of a man in jail, let’s say the lava
has just reached his window?
he asked. I think you are confusing subject and object, she said.
Very likely, said Geryon.

Related Characters: Geryon (speaker), Herakles’s Grandmother (speaker), Herakles
Related Symbols: Volcano 
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

All your designs are about captivity, it depresses me.

Related Characters: Herakles (speaker), Geryon
Page Number: 55
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

I am a drop of gold he would say
I am molten matter returned from the core of earth to tell you interior things

Related Characters: Herakles’s Grandmother (speaker), Lava Man (speaker), Geryon, Ancash
Related Symbols: Wings , Volcano 
Page Number: 59
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

Reality is a sound, you have to tune in to it not just keep yelling.

Related Characters: Geryon, Herakles
Page Number: 60
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

How do you think it feels
growing up in a house full
of empty fruit bowls? His voice was high.
His eyes met hers and they began
to laugh. They laughed
until tears ran down. Then they sat quiet. Drifted back
to opposite walls.

Related Characters: Geryon (speaker), Herakles, Geryon’s Mother, Geryon’s Brother
Page Number: 68-69
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24 Quotes

Geryon’s life entered a numb time, caught between the tongue and the taste.

Related Characters: Geryon, Herakles, Geryon’s Brother
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:

Yellow? said Geryon and he was thinking Yellow! Yellow! Even in dreams
he doesn’t know me at all! Yellow!

Related Characters: Geryon (speaker), Herakles
Related Symbols: Red, Wings
Page Number: 74
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

A man moves through time. It means nothing except that, like a harpoon, once thrown he will arrive.

Related Characters: Geryon
Page Number: 81
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

There is no person without a world.

Related Characters: Geryon, Geryon’s Brother
Page Number: 82
Explanation and Analysis:

It was not the fear of ridicule,
to which everyday life as a winged red person had accommodated Geryon early in life,
but this blank desertion of his own mind
that threw him into despair.

Related Characters: Geryon
Related Symbols: Red, Wings
Page Number: 83
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 29 Quotes

[…] Time isn’t made of anything. It is an abstraction.
Just a meaning that we
impose upon motion.

Related Characters: The Yellowbeard (speaker), Geryon
Page Number: 90
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

It is
because of her I began to notice moments of death. Children make you see distances.

Related Characters: Lazer (speaker), Geryon, Herakles’s Grandmother
Related Symbols: Volcano 
Page Number: 94
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 31 Quotes

You can’t be alive and think about nothing.

Related Characters: Geryon (speaker), Tango Singer
Page Number: 103
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32 Quotes

“…I will never know how you see red and you will never know how I see it.”

Related Characters: Geryon, Ancash
Related Symbols: Wings , Red
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 37 Quotes

I’m a master of monsters aren’t I?

Related Characters: Herakles (speaker), Geryon, Ancash
Related Symbols: Wings
Page Number: 129
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 38 Quotes

What Geryon was thinking Herakles never asked. In the space between them
developed a dangerous cloud.

Related Characters: Geryon, Herakles, Ancash, Ancash’s Mother
Related Symbols: Volcano 
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 39 Quotes

A volcano is not a mountain like others. Raising a camera to one’s face has effects
no one can calculate in advance.

Related Characters: Geryon, Herakles, Ancash, Ancash’s Mother
Related Symbols: Volcano 
Page Number: 135
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 45 Quotes

There is one thing I want from you.
Tell me.
Want to see you use those wings.

Related Characters: Geryon (speaker), Ancash (speaker), Herakles
Related Symbols: Wings , Volcano 
Page Number: 144
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 46 Quotes

This is for Ancash, he calls to the earth diminishing below. This is a memory of our
beauty.

Related Characters: Geryon (speaker), Herakles, Ancash
Related Symbols: Red, Wings , Volcano 
Page Number: 145
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 47 Quotes

We are amazing beings,
Geryon is thinking. We are neighbors of fire.
And now time is rushing towards them
where they stand side by side with arms touching, immortality on their faces, night at their back.

Related Characters: Geryon (speaker), Herakles, Ancash, Stesichoros
Related Symbols: Wings , Volcano 
Page Number: 146
Explanation and Analysis: