Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Good Morning, Midnight, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Sadness and Vulnerability
Identity and Belonging
Memory, Loss, and Change
Money and Manipulation
Summary
Analysis
No longer reminiscing about her past, Sasha receives a note from René. He stopped by the hotel to see her, but she wasn’t there. He has, he says, had a stroke of luck and will be leaving Paris in the next couple days. When Sasha gets upstairs, the man in the nightgown calls her a dirty cow, but she has no idea why he’s so upset. Then, once she’s inside her room, a knock sounds on the door. It’s René. He tells her that he stopped by earlier, and that the receptionist let him wait in Sasha’s room. Sasha realizes that the man in the nightgown probably thought she had called for a “gigolo,” which must have been why he was so rude to her in the hall.
The man in the nightgown intrudes once more on Sasha’s life, this time judging her because he thinks she has hired a sex worker. Of course, her sex life doesn’t affect him, but he doesn’t hesitate to let her know that he disapproves of her actions. And yet, she didn’t hire a sex worker—René just showed up on his own. No matter what Sasha does, then, she seemingly can’t avoid getting judged by other people, which is most likely why she cares so much about how she presents herself to the world.
Themes
Sasha wishes René hadn’t come to her hotel. He playfully hints at wanting to sleep with her, but she shows her annoyance that he has showed up at her hotel, so he quickly switches subjects, telling her that he met a rich American woman. He explains that he enticed the woman and convinced her to lend him money. And Sasha, he says, played an important role in his success—she is, he says, a “luck-bringer,” which is why he wanted to see her before leaving Paris. He takes her hand in his and stares at it, and Sasha assumes he’s sizing up her ring, which she tells him is worth nothing. But he claims he was just looking at her hand.
René’s intentions are still unclear, as it’s hard to determine if he legitimately wants to spend time with Sasha or if he’s hoping to get something out of her. His story about the American woman reveals that he is the type to con wealthy women (just as Sasha suspected). However, it’s possible that he’s just telling her this story as a way of getting Sasha to put her guard down. The ambiguity surrounding his motivations muddles their entire relational dynamic, making it nearly impossible to know if they have a genuine connection or if he’s just out to deceive her.
Themes
Sasha agrees to meet René later that night. When he leaves the hotel, she feels unexpectedly giddy and excited but then forces herself to slow down. She even decides to not wear any new clothes or do anything to change her appearance. She has a total of 1,600 francs left and decides to take 250 along with her—enough for dinner and drinks, but also enough to pay for a taxi if she needs to quickly get away from René in the event that he turns mean.
Sasha is suspicious of René because his intentions are unclear. Unable to tell whether or not he’s trying to dupe her, she devises an exit strategy that she can use in the event that he mistreats her. And yet, she also seems quite excited to spend time with him, suggesting that she’s starved for human connection and, as a result, is willing to open herself up to some risk.
Themes
Sasha intentionally arrives late to meet René. She doesn’t see him anywhere but isn’t perturbed—for some reason, she can tell he’s somewhere nearby. She sends the waiter to the back terrace, and surely enough, he returns with René, who is cold from sitting outside and mildly annoyed that Sasha was late. He has already had a few drinks, but he and Sasha order another round, and he admits that he won’t have enough money to pay for anything after he settles the bar tab. Sasha asks why he hasn’t gotten any money from the American woman yet, and he says it’s too early to ask her for anything. He’ll soon be able to borrow money from her, but “she must be ready” before he asks.
When René says that the American woman “must be ready” before he asks for money, it becomes clear that he has a very methodical way of squeezing money out of people. At the same time, though, it’s also possible that the American woman doesn’t exist, and that he made her up simply to put Sasha off her guard. Either way, Sasha has good reason to be suspicious of René, though the fact that she doesn’t leave suggests that she has decided to see how things progress from here.
Themes
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In a taxi on the way to dinner, René asks Sasha to give him money before they arrive at the restaurant so he can pay for dinner. She obliges and gives him 200 francs. At the restaurant, René eats ravenously while Sasha hardly touches her food. Although Sasha thinks René invented the American woman, something seems to have made him confident and happy. He keeps talking about London, saying he’ll be there in a couple days and asking Sasha about life in the city. He also speaks candidly about what he’s heard from male sex workers in London, saying that the city is a “gold-mine” because Englishwomen love foreign men. Many of these men, René explains, are gay, but the Englishwomen don’t care and pay them handsomely.
By this point, Sasha has fully given herself over to René. She doesn’t actually trust him, but she’s not protecting herself from him, either, since she willingly gives him 200 francs even though she suspects he’s after her money. The fact that she resigns herself to giving him cash suggests that she just wants to spend some time with him, regardless of whether or not he’s trying to con her—a sign that she yearns for nearly any kind of human connection.
Themes
Sasha tries to get René to see that he’s too optimistic about his prospects in London, but he insists that she’s just skeptical because she’s a woman—after all, he says, England is a difficult place for women. But Sasha knows René will have his own hardships in London, especially since he’ll face difficulties in England’s racist society, though nothing she says will dampen his enthusiasm. Instead of listening to her sober advice, he goes on at length about the tricks of sex work, and Sasha starts to genuinely enjoy herself as they talk loudly about lewd matters.
Sasha and René’s conversation touches on the various ways in which society discriminates against and disenfranchises people. René notes that England is a sexist place, and his comment leads Sasha to think about how her home country is also quite racist. The implication here is that René is a person of color, and that he will face racist discrimination in England. In a way, then, Paris is framed as somewhat of a safe haven for both Sasha and René—a place where they can live without constantly facing discrimination. At the same time, though, Sasha constantly thinks about her national identity and feels as if people hold it against her in Paris, so it’s not necessarily the case that she feels free to be whomever she wants in France. Perhaps realizing that living in Paris hasn’t improved her life very much, she recognizes that René is romanticizing London in the same way that she and Enno romanticized Paris, since he makes the unrealistic assumption that all his problems will go away once he moves.
Themes
Sasha briefly worries that the waiter is judging them for talking so openly about sex, but she doesn’t care—she’s having a great time. But then René tells her that he asked the waiter if there was a nearby hotel that he and Sasha could visit after dinner, and Sasha becomes angry and embarrassed. She tries once again to tell him that there’ll never be anything between them, but he just says it’s a pity she won’t give him a chance. He then tells her that she doesn’t need to be frightened of him, since he’d never do anything to hurt her. He’s not wicked like some other young men.
René’s desire to sleep with Sasha could mean that he’s genuinely interested in her in a romantic way. On the other hand, it could also mean that he’s a sex worker who wants to have sex with her so he can later demand money from her. Perhaps sensing that she’s worried about the latter possibility, he tries to put her at ease by saying that she doesn’t need to be afraid of him. However, it remains unclear whether or not this is actually true, thus infusing their relationship with a disconcerting sense of uncertainty.
Themes
At one point in their conversation, Sasha calls herself a cérébrale (a “cerebral”), but René disagrees—he actually thought she was rather stupid. When she shows offense, he quickly explains that he doesn’t think she’s unintelligent, it’s just that she seems to “feel better than [she] think[s].” A real cérébrale, René believes, doesn’t like men. She also doesn’t like women, instead only liking herself and her own thoughts.
René has just told Sasha that he’s not mean like other young men, but now he calls her stupid. Of course, he doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s unintelligent, but it’s still not a particularly nice thing to say, perhaps suggesting that he isn’t as harmless as he’d like her to think.
Themes
Sasha tires of her conversation with René and suddenly wants to leave the restaurant. She tells him that she’s going to see an exhibition and that he can come if he wants, though what she really hopes is that he’ll leave her alone. But he accompanies her, and by the time they get to the museum, they end up not going inside. Instead, they go to yet another bar, where they plan to have a final “goodbye” drink.
There’s a restless quality to Sasha and René’s time together, as they wander from place to place. Despite their roaming, though, they really just do the same thing over and over: drink. Their listlessness aligns with the lifestyle many people led in the 1920s and 30s, as the members of the Lost Generation felt wayward and rudderless as they made their way through Paris in the aftermath of World War I.
Themes
In the bar, Sasha tells a story about working for a rich couple in Paris. She lived in their enormous house, and as she describes it, René interjects that he, too, stayed in that house. They realize they’re talking about the same place, causing Sasha to wonder about René’s actual life story. Although it’s entertaining to talk about this overlap in their lives, it doesn’t make Sasha doesn’t feel closer to René. To the contrary, it makes her suspicious. She excuses herself and goes to the bathroom. It’s very familiar to her—yet another Parisian bathroom in which she has cried. She wonders if the mirror recognizes her and, if so, what it thinks about how she has changed.
Again, Sasha has good reason to be suspicious of René. It’s clear that he’s not telling the truth about his past, since he originally said he was new to Paris but now reveals that he used to stay in a mansion in the city. Because his stories don’t add up, Sasha remembers her initial reluctance to spend time with him, which is why she removes herself to the bathroom. Once in the bathroom, though, her mind wanders from René, once more returning to her sad thoughts about her past. It seems that nothing is capable of distracting her from her sorrowful memories for very long.
Themes
Returning to the table, Sasha orders another drink, though René tells her not to because he doesn’t want her to get drunk and cry. She ignores him, but he tells her to finish the drink quickly so they can go to her hotel. When she protests, he asks what’s keeping her from having sex with him. Doesn’t she want to? She admits that she does but that she’s afraid. He then wants to know why—does she think he’ll kill her and steal her beautiful ring, or perhaps kill her just because he likes to do “bad things”? If so, he assures her that he doesn’t want to do bad things to her. He just wants to lie in her embrace.
When Sasha admits that she wants to have sex with René, it becomes a little easier to understand why she has decided to put herself at risk by spending time with a man she doesn’t fully trust: she yearns for human connection, comfort, and sensuality. Considering that she spends so much time alone and depressed, it’s not particularly surprising that she wants to experience some intimacy. The problem, though, is that she won’t let herself put down her guard—and for good reason, too, since René seems dishonest. The question thus becomes whether she wants safety or intimacy more—a terrible decision to make.
Themes
René presses Sasha to tell him why she’s afraid. She privately notes that, if she really thought he’d kill her, she’d be all the more likely to go with him. Finally, she tells him that she’s afraid of all men. In fact, she’s afraid of women, too. She’s afraid of everyone, since all humans are like wicked “hyenas.” She would have killed herself a long time ago, she says, if only she had the courage. Having spoken about her fears, Sasha feels plunged into darkness. It’s not until a moment later that she pulls herself together and realizes she’s still sitting in the bar across from René, a sex worker who looks quite sad.
Although René seems dishonest, Sasha actually opens up to him in this moment. Their relationship is quite strained by the fact that she’s suspicious of him, but they still manage to have an emotionally intimate conversation in which Sasha finally articulates her anxieties about interacting with other people. It’s not just that she’s afraid of someone like René, but that she’s weary of everyone she meets. Considering that the entire novel is made up of encounters with strangers that send Sasha into bouts of misery, it’s clear that she’s telling the truth about her feelings of fear and vulnerability.
Themes
Speaking softly, René says that he has many wounds. He lifts his head and shows Sasha a scar that traverses his throat. There are many others, he says. Sasha says that she, too, has been wounded, and he validates this sentiment—he can tell that she’s been hurt. And then he says again that he wants to have sex with her. She refuses once again, prompting him to ask what happened in her life that hurt her so badly. But she can’t answer this question because it wasn’t just one thing that hurt her, but an accumulation of many things. All he knows, though, is that he could relieve her of all her pain. After making love, he assures her, she would feel changed. But she holds her ground.
René and Sasha connect over their shared pain in this scene, as René gets Sasha to open up about her sad past. However, there’s a difference between their pain: whereas Sasha refers to emotional hardships, René talks about physical traumas. Of course, the fact that they’ve experienced different kinds of hardship doesn’t mean they can’t relate to each other, but René’s focus on physicality suggests that he might not fully understand Sasha’s hesitancy to have sex with him. He promises that having sex would help her relax, but he fails to recognize that what would really make her feel better is a genuine sense of companionship—companionship that goes beyond physical pleasure.
Themes
Sasha has a brief flashback to lounging in a room with a previous lover—a lover who mistreated her and often brought home other women. She then comes back to reality. She’s in a taxi with René, who whistles a pleasant tune until they reach her hotel, at which point they say goodnight and part ways. But then, as she walks in the dark to find her door, she sees the glowing ember of a cigarette hovering in the blackness, and she can sense that it’s René: he has come back for her. Without thinking, she throws herself into his arms.
When Sasha realizes that René has come back for her, she abandons all her hesitations about becoming intimate with him. Her flashback in the taxi might have something to do with her decision to embrace him: unlike the indifferent lover from her flashback, René is actually interested in Sasha and actively pursues her. Flattered by his interest, she goes to him without further thought.
Themes
Hugging René, Sasha feels profoundly happy. She can’t believe she thought she was finished with love. She’d thought feelings of youthfulness and happiness had left her forever, but now she feels reenergized and in touch with her emotions. She and René go into her room, where they passionately kiss. But as soon as they’re fully inside, she can tell that the spell has been broken. Now she feels uncomfortable and removed, wondering if anybody else in the hotel heard them in the hall. Everything is wrong, so she pulls away and makes some drinks.
Sasha is eager to feel young and in love again, but she soon realizes that these feelings won’t automatically develop just because she’s in the embrace of an attractive young man. She yearns for intimacy and human connection, but this yearning doesn’t fully overshadow her fear of letting people into her life. After all, she has been hurt before, making it hard for her to open up to a stranger (especially a stranger like René, whose motivations seem dubious and potentially threatening).
Themes
Her drink tastes terrible, but Sasha drinks it anyway. She wants René to say something soothing and nice, but he just looks at her. He slides his hand under her dress and lets it rest on her knee, and suddenly she feels quite drunk—so drunk, in fact, that she starts getting angry, especially when René suggests that she has been playing with him all along. He thinks she always knew they would sleep together but just acted like they wouldn’t. Resenting his implication that she’s “easy,” she asks him to leave, but he refuses.
Sasha’s relationship with René begins to sour in this scene, as René accuses her of leading him on. Interestingly enough, Sasha has spent the entirety of their relationship trying to figure out René’s motivations, and now it emerges that René has been doing the same thing: he has been trying to discern whether or not she wants to have sex with him.
Themes
Again, Sasha asks René to leave. The intensity of their conversation escalates, as he thinks it’s ridiculous that she wants him gone. He even says she’ll have to call someone to force him out. She would have no shame in calling out for help, she says, but then she realizes she doesn’t want the people in her hotel to know he’s in her room. He seems to realize the same thing and tauntingly tells her to cry for help. He also gets angrier each time she asks him to leave, accusing her of kissing him one moment and banishing him the next. He advances on her as she writhes against his strength, but he manages to get her onto the bed.
Throughout the novel, there have been a number of red flags about René, since Sasha has been unable to pin down whether or not he’s dangerous. It now becomes clear that he is, indeed, dangerous, since he refuses to leave forces himself on Sasha. What’s especially tragic about this development is that René was one of the only people in the novel who could have helped Sasha stave off her loneliness and sorrow. If he had turned out to be kind and attentive, she would now have somebody to become emotionally (and maybe physically) intimate with. As it stands, though, he turns against her, ultimately validating her fears about other people and their malicious intentions.
Themes
Sasha keeps her knees pressed firmly together. Her dress is ripped in the back, and René has pinned her by the arms. And yet, she remains determined not to make a sound. She tries to tell herself that the entire ordeal is actually rather funny, though she also realizes that René looks quite mean. Still pinning her, he tells her about a method he learned to get women to submit to him when they don’t want to. She asks if he learned this method in Morocco, but he says it’s unnecessary there: a group of four men can overpower a woman and then take turns doing whatever they want to her.
Sasha’s determination to stay quiet highlights her fear of being judged by others. Although René is trying to rape her, she cares more about preserving her image as a respectable person in the hotel than she cares about saving herself. And though the fact that René is trying to rape her has no reflection on who she is as a person, she still refuses to call out for help—a tragic illustration of just how afraid she is of what other people will think about her.
Themes
René tells Sasha that he’s going to hurt her and that it’s her fault. He asks if she understands, and though she’s in pain, she says she does. She then tells him where she keeps her money and urges him to take it. He lets go of her and goes to the cash. As he looks it over, she asks him to take the 1,000 francs but to leave the smaller bills for her—otherwise, she’ll have nothing. She then tells him she’s not upset; she understands that everyone has to make their living. And as she says these things, she feels as if it isn’t really her who’s talking. Refusing to look at him as he takes the money, part of her briefly wishes he would stay or at least say goodbye, but then he leaves.
The fact that René stops trying to rape Sasha when she tells him where her money is suggests that he’s primarily interested in stealing her cash. However, his attempt to rape her in the first place also indicates that he wanted sex, so it remains somewhat unclear what his motivations were when it comes to his relationship with Sasha. He didn’t exclusively want her money, but he also clearly wasn’t interested in her in an emotional or romantic way, otherwise he obviously wouldn’t have tried to rape her.
Themes
Sasha huddles on the bed and cries after René leaves, chastising herself for everything that has happened. Her entire stay in Paris has felt pitiful and ridiculous. She stares at the painting she bought from Serge and feels as if its subject—a lonesome guitar player—is looking back at her with a “mocking” expression. She also thinks about how the man in the nightgown probably heard her entire exchange with René. He’s probably still listening and hearing her cry, so she stops herself.
Alone again, Sasha blames herself for her horrific encounter with René. Although it’s not her fault that René tried to rape her, she has trouble accepting her innocence, perhaps because she has a tendency to think the worst of herself. Instead of recognizing that she is the victim in this situation, she beats herself up about what happened. What’s more, she worries about what the man in the nightgown will think, despite the fact that she doesn’t even like him—yet another illustration of how much she cares about what others think.
Themes
Sasha gets up to see if René left her any money at all, though she doubts he would have. She’s surprised, then, to find that he didn’t take anything. She pours a whiskey and raises a toast, thinking, “Here’s to you, gigolo, chic gigolo…” Thinking about how she’s not used to such kindness, she keeps drinking until she’s extremely drunk. Then she starts trying to will René to come back. He can’t be far from the hotel—she can even picture him walking on the street, so she tries to communicate with him in her mind, calling him back to the room.
The ending of Good Morning, Midnight is emotionally complex. Sasha has every reason to hate René, considering that he tried to rape her. But when she discovers that he didn’t take any of her money, she feels a strong fondness for him. However, his decision not to take her money doesn’t change the fact that he behaved quite violently, though it does make it even harder to discern what, exactly, his intentions were regarding his relationship with Sasha. There’s quite a bit of ambiguity surrounding his interest in Sasha, as readers are left to decide for themselves what René wanted out of their interactions. It’s possible that he originally wanted to con her out of her money but then felt sorry for mistreating her so decided not to rob her. It’s also possible that he wasn’t interested in money at all and instead genuinely wanted to become intimate with her, eventually losing his temper when she refused.
Themes
Desperately wanting René to return, Sasha unlatches the door. She envisions him walking toward the hotel. In anticipation, she takes off her clothes and gets into bed. She can feel him coming up the stairs. Then the door budges. She shields her eyes as he comes inside. And as he makes his way to the bed, she lies completely still. As he gets closer, though, she knows it’s not René, but the man in the nightgown. Her only question is whether he’s in the blue or the white gown, so she takes her arm from her eyes and looks: it’s the white gown. They make silent eye contact, and though Sasha feels herself hating him, she wraps her arms around him and pulls him to the bed.
Left in a state of extreme emotional vulnerability, Sasha is eager for any kind of human connection, even if this means embracing the man in the nightgown. The novel’s bleak ending thus highlights her desperate need for intimacy—a need that drives her into the arms of a man she despises, essentially illustrating the power of sorrow and loneliness to eclipse everything else in life.
Themes
