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Chapter 4
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Danish Girl, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Gender Transitioning
Self-Transformation
Freedom and Constraint
Love and Acceptance
Courage
Loss and Grief
Summary
Analysis
Back in the present, on their way to the Artists’ Ball, Greta and Lili pass by one of the secretive clubs where gay men gather. Greta is excited about the ball; Lili is, too, but she’s also nervous. Soon after they arrive, Lili sits down on a bench to wait while Greta goes to say hello to one of the Wegeners’ friends. She pulls Einar’s diary from her handbag and begins writing notes about the people she observes, particularly a man with curly hair who sits down nearby.
Bringing Lili out in public makes her presence real in a way it hasn’t been before. Now that she’s on this path, Lili cannot go back into hiding. Still, the gay club offers a pointed reminder of how stigmatized queer sexuality is and thus highlights by analogy the risks Lili faces. She’s showing great courage.
Active
Themes
Literary Devices
Soon this man strikes up a conversation with Lili. Disconcerted, she excuses herself and flees to the building’s courtyard. But the young man—a talented painter by the name of Henrik Sandahl—follows her out there. He tells her that people say those who eat acorns from the courtyard’s oak tree can transform themselves into whomever they wish. Lili introduces herself as Einar Wegener’s cousin from the countryside. Deep inside Lili, Einar experiences a strange sensation when Henrik begins talking about him as if he’s not there. Lili tells Henrik about growing up in Bluetooth. She tells him she doesn’t know who she’d wish to be if she ate an acorn. Henrik would become a Polish king he admires.
Although Einar and Lili experience themselves as distinct personalities, they are connected through a single body and shared experiences. At this point, presenting as Lili still feels a bit like a game to Einar, hence the odd sensation of having Henrik talking about him in the third person. Lili’s answer about the acorn is telling—she can’t think of anyone she wants to turn into because she is who she wants to be. She is who Einar would become if he ate one of the legendary acorns.
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Themes
Then it’s after midnight and Henrik is offering to walk Lili home. Deep inside Lili, Einar begins to panic a little. He’s unused to romantic attention from anyone but Greta and he longs for her guidance. Then, suddenly, Henrik is kissing Lili over and over.
Active
Themes
Literary Devices
When Henrik leaves the courtyard, Einar follows him inside Lili, clinging to Henrik’s hand. Einar tells himself that what he’s doing doesn’t count because being Lili is just a game. He tells himself he isn’t “abnormal.” He isn’t, as his doctor tactfully tried to suggest recently, a “homosexual”—not at all! This is what he tells himself when he—or is it Lili?—decides to follow Henrik into a dark street somewhere for something more (something Einar is unwilling to name even in the privacy of his own mind). Although he worries about Greta finding out, he decides to let Lili play her game to the end.
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But before Lili can have her way, her nose begins to bleed. Henrik, horrified, calls for help and the first person who hears him, as fate would have it, is Greta. She rushes to Lili’s side, embracing her and asking worried questions. Greta doesn’t notice as Henrik runs into the darkness, but Lili does.
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