Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Immortalists, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fate vs. Choice
Family and Shared History
Obsession
Death, Meaning, and Legacy
Surviving vs. Living
Magic, Religion, Dance, and Possibility
Summary
Analysis
In dance class one day, Gali picks on Simon regarding his alignment. Afterward, Simon commiserates with Tommy and Beau, two other guys in the class, and he goes out to lunch with them. Robert doesn’t join, and he glares at Simon when Tommy puts his arm around Simon’s shoulder as they walk away. Simon tells himself that he’s not doing anything wrong. Most of the men at Academy are flirtatious, and it’s not his fault if Robert doesn’t join in. After lunch, Simon and Tommy see a flier tacked up on a pharmacy window. It reads “THE GAY CANCER” and has photos of a young man with purple splotches over his body and mouth. For the rest of the day, Simon can’t get the images out of his head.
Simon continues to exhibit an obsession with being able to be romantically involved with whomever he wants. At the same time, the book foreshadows how this obsession could be his downfall. At this time, in 1981, the world is just discovering the “gay cancer”—which is soon known as AIDS. This moment in the novel is filled with dramatic irony, because the AIDS is now known to be transmitted through sex. This gives Simon’s fate a feeling of inevitability, particularly given the fact that he is so invested in his sexual liberation.
Themes
In the winter of 1981, Richie, one of Simon’s coworkers at Purp, goes to the doctor for an eye issue, and Simon covers his shift. The next day, Richie is back in the club, laughing and dancing, but a few weeks later, Richie is dead. Soon, the hospital fills up with gay men and newspaper articles describe the cancer, but no one knows how it’s transmitted yet. As the disease becomes more widespread, Robert tells Simon that they should stay in the apartment. Simon is panicked by the thought of quarantine, as he refuses to be cut off from the world. He’s also worried that the fortune teller may be right, and that he’ll die by June 21st.
Simon continues to usher in his own fate. Afraid that he might die by June 21st regardless of his actions, he chooses to continue to live normally. Yet this is the very thing which leads to his death, proving how the knowledge of his fate causes him once again to make choices that bring him closer to that fate. Additionally, Simon’s choices introduce another theme: the idea of living rather than surviving. Knowing that he could be cutting his life short, Simon still chooses to do what is most meaningful to him, rather than choosing to cut himself off from the joy of dancing or being with others.
Themes
Robert tells Simon that he shouldn’t work at Purp anymore. Simon says he needs the money, but Robert counters, pointing out that he makes money at Corps and that working at Purp is just a vice for Simon. Robert says that all Simon really wants is to be able to have sex with whomever he desires. Simon leaves the apartment, ashamed and angry. Soon after, Simon and his coworker Adrian go out together. When Adrian drives Simon home, Simon reaches out to touch Adrian and they begin an affair.
Simon’s decision to have sex with Adrian only proves Robert’s point and illustrates how, even in the midst of an epidemic, Simon refuses to give up any of the freedom that he has found. His obsession with maintaining a sexually liberated lifestyle therefore may come even at the cost of surviving.
Themes
A few weeks later, Simon goes to see Klara’s show in a small bar. She performs skillfully, but her tricks are humble. Only a few people remain in the bar when she performs the Jaws of Life. Hanging onto a rope by her teeth, Klara rises to the second story windows and then floats back down again. Simon knows there’s no trick—just strength and lightness. It reminds Simon of both a levitation and a hanging.
Just like dance, Klara’s ability to hang on to the rope with her teeth expands Simon’s idea of what is possible for the human body to achieve. Like Simon’s descriptions of himself “flying,” here Klara does the same thing. His reference to a hanging, however, foreshadows the potential danger in the trick.
Themes
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Afterward, Simon meets up with Klara in the green room. He watches as the manager shakes her hand and gropes her. When he leaves, Klara steals a wad of bills from the manager’s jacket. Simon rebukes her for stealing, but she rebuts that he isn’t one to talk. She heard that he started screwing around with Adrian, and she scolds him for cheating on Robert. Simon waves Klara off, but he admits inwardly that Klara doesn’t know the half of it. He’s been fooling around with strangers in parks, restrooms, and movie theaters.
Simon’s escapades underscore how much of an obsession with pleasure he has cultivated. He is so desperate to take advantage of the remaining time he has that he relentlessly pursues sex. But as the AIDS epidemic lurks in the background, Simon’s actions are reckless and leave open the possibility that if he does die in the next few months, he likely brought it upon himself.
Themes
On the first day of June, Simon notices a dark mark on his abdomen. He sits in the shower and sobs. When he stands, he notices that Robert has come in. Simon tries to hide the mark, but Robert won’t let him. Simon apologizes profusely and says they should be getting to the theater. Robert disagrees and hails a cab.
Here, the consequences of Simon’s actions become evident. While it is uncertain whether Simon might have avoided his fate if he made different choices, the knowledge of his fate led him to make choices that sealed it.
Themes
