Previous
10. Royal Jelly
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Great Automatic Grammatizator, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Deception, Manipulation, and Power
Greed
Illusion vs. Reality
Autonomy and Control
Revenge and Justice
Summary
Analysis
When the narrator, Claude, wakes up in the morning, it’s snowing, and his apartment is freezing. His roommate, George, makes coffee, and they commiserate over their desperate need for money to pay their New York rent. As Claude reads Lionel Pantaloon’s scandalous newspaper gossip column in bed, inspiration suddenly strikes. He pitches his idea: he and George will offer the wealthy victims of these gossip pieces a chance to get revenge, carried out by him and George personally—for a fee. George is immediately on board, and they name their venture Vengeance is Mine Inc.
The absurdity of Claude and George’s idea is counterbalanced by their strangely logical approach—exploiting the pettiness of the wealthy (and their egos) for significant profit. This premise is both a critique of the wealthy elite and of gossip columnists, groups who are both ultimately exploited by Claude and George’s scheme. The friends are simply filling a hole in the market, and they are oddly optimistic about their plans.
Themes
Drafting their business cards, Claude and George brainstorm a list of “punishments” to offer their clientele. They settle on five escalating options, each with a different price tag: a simple punch to the nose; a black eye; both a punch and a black eye; placing a venom-less rattlesnake in the columnist’s car; and the most expensive, kidnapping the columnist, stealing their clothes, and abandoning them in the street at rush hour. Their prices range from $500 to $2,500. To make it official, Claude suggests having the cards printed by his friend George Karnoffsky, who runs a shop a few blocks away.
Claude and George’s pricing reinforces the story’s dark humor, as they treat personal vengeance like something that can be neatly categorized and sold. The increasing severity of punishments makes the venture feel disturbingly methodical, and printing business cards suggests they believe professionalism can make them seem more legitimate, even as they casually discuss committing outright crimes.
Themes
When the young men show Karnoffsky their design, he laughs, assuming it’s an elaborate joke. But once he realizes they’re serious, he skeptically agrees to print the cards. Claude is thrilled with the final product, and they rush home to prepare their first batch of letters. George delivers the two letters immediately, while Claude contacts an insider friend in the newspaper industry to learn about Lionel Pantaloon’s daily routine. He discovers that Pantaloon ends every evening at a bar called The Penguin Club. That night, Claude and George drink and fantasize about one day becoming millionaires.
Karnoffsky’s reaction is the expected response to such an absurd business idea, making him a stand-in for the reader as the only “normal” character in the story. The fact that Claude and George spend their first night drinking and dreaming of wealth rather than getting organized suggests they still see this idea as a fantasy, where they can control the outcome without fully considering the risks involved.
Themes
By the next morning, Claude and George have already received a response from Mr. Womberg, one of Pantaloon’s targets from yesterday, requesting they start by punching Pantaloon’s nose. If it goes well, Womberg will pay them to work their way through the whole list of punishments. Thrilled, they buy all the day’s newspapers and personally reach out to the latest gossip column targets. Within 24 hours, they earn four more clients. Overwhelmed by the influx of cash, Claude proposes a scheme: since multiple clients want the same columnist punished in the same manner, they’ll carry out each act just once but charge every client as if they had done them separately. George calls the idea “brilliant.”
Claude and George’s immediate success fuels their confidence—and their growing arrogance. Charging multiple clients for a single act of vengeance shows how quickly they resort to deception to maximize their profit, manipulating their own clients for personal gain. Still, their tenacity suggests they see this not as a crime but an entrepreneurial opportunity, exploiting every angle to make as much money as possible in the most efficient way.
Themes
Get the entire The Great Automatic Grammatizator LitChart as a printable PDF.
On their way to punch Pantaloon for the first time, George dons a thick mustache as a disguise and adopts a fake Russian accent. They track the columnist to the Penguin Club, where George approaches the doorman and asks to speak with Pantaloon privately. The moment Pantaloon—a small, mousy man—appears, George lands a forceful punch straight to his nose. He and Claude make a quick getaway, but they soon notice a car in close pursuit. Believing it’s the police, George urges Claude to keep driving, but Claude pulls over.
George’s disguise and fake accent add an element of theatricality to their scheme, which is further intensified by the subsequent car chase. Their assumption that the police are after them demonstrates their awareness that their business isn’t entirely legal—despite the carefree attitudes they’ve been operating with—and that the consequences of their actions may be catching up to them.
Themes
Instead of the police, it’s one of Claude and George’s clients, thrilled by the spectacle from outside the club. Impressed, he pays them double their fee and advises them to leave town immediately. The two men decide to wait for the rest of their payments to arrive before skipping town the following day. Once the money is secured, they head south in search of warmth, fantasizing about betting their $2,000 on horse races and turning it into a fortune. George jokes that one day, they might even be rich enough to land in Pantaloon’s column themselves. Claude grins and agrees “that would be something.”
Ultimately, rather than facing judgment or punishment, Claude and George are rewarded for their crimes, further legitimizing the absurd business of revenge. Their decision to leave town, however, suggests they understand on some level that their luck can’t last forever, even as they continue to fantasize about becoming millionaires and joining the very same elite circles they have just exploited.
Themes
