Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Man Who Was Thursday, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Order, Chaos, and God
Identity
Tradition vs. Modernity
The Purpose of Art
Summary
Analysis
After Gabriel Syme reveals that he works for the police, Lucian Gregory grabs a revolver and holds him at gunpoint. But Syme reminds Gregory that they’ve “checkmated each other”—neither can reveal what they know about the other. Gregory puts down the gun, warning Syme against breaking his promise.
The men have “checkmated each other” because, if Gregory reveals that Syme is a detective, then Syme will turn Gregory in to the police—and vice versa. Clearly, then, Syme isn’t just going after Lucian Gregory: he’s targeting other anarchists who have far more power and influence.
Themes
Literary Devices
The other anarchists enter. A short man named Comrade Buttons asks Gregory whether Syme is one of the delegates, and which branch he represents. Syme claims to be representing Sunday, and the anarchists agree to give him a seat at the meeting. Gregory paces around the room and realizes that, if he gives away Syme’s identity, then Syme will just turn him in to the police. He decides that the group should give Syme as little information as possible, so he calls for the meeting to start.
Chesterton adds more layers of deception, manipulation, and mistaken identity to the plot: Syme manipulates the other anarchists into including him in the meeting, while Gregory tries to manipulate them in order to protect the Council leadership from Syme’s investigation. Needless to say, only one of them will succeed—and so far, Syme has outsmarted Gregory at every turn.
Themes
Comrade Buttons, the meeting’s chairman, gives a speech about the previous Thursday, a man who once organized a failed bombing attempt and died from replacing his milk with chalky water (which he viewed as a more humane alternative). It’s time to choose a new Thursday. One of the other men nominates Gregory, and Buttons asks Gregory to make a speech.
Comrade Buttons’s speech suggests that, despite Lucian Gregory’s high-minded praise for the Council, the previous Thursday was really a pathetic crackpot. Of course, this points to how absurd and misguided the anarchists’ political program is in general. But this doesn’t make them any less dangerous.
Themes
Gregory decides to try and sound as literary and ambiguous as he can, to throw Syme off the scent. He says that the public misunderstands and persecutes anarchists, when they’re really meek and harmless—just like the Romans did to Christians. But one of the men, Comrade Witherspoon, loudly objects, “I’m not meek!” Gregory claims that the man really is meek, and the group is based on love and brotherhood, but Witherspoon continues to heckle him in disagreement.
Gregory is so certain that he will be elected that he speaks only to Syme. Of course, his belief that he can change Syme’s mind is naïve, as he has already shown Syme his weapons and told him about his group’s plans “to abolish God!” And Gregory’s plan also backfires in another way: it alienates his audience, who (like Comrade Witherspoon) enjoy feeling like evil, rebellious villains.
Themes
Get the entire The Man Who Was Thursday LitChart as a printable PDF.
After Gregory’s speech, Syme stands to object to Gregory’s candidacy. He declares that Gregory’s moralistic ideas about truth, honesty, and virtue are not fit for an anarchist, and that the group should choose a stronger, more ferocious Thursday instead. Gregory calls Syme a hypocrite, but Syme claims that he’s only doing his duty and repeats that a merciful, amiable man like Gregory should not be Thursday. Syme proposes himself as an alternate candidate, and the other men cheer and nominate him. Infuriated, Gregory nearly reveals that Syme works for the police. Instead, he simply begs the group not to elect Syme—but the group ignores him and does it anyway.
Gregory’s blunder fits right into Syme’s true plan: getting himself elected as Thursday and going after the Central Anarchist Council. Thus, Syme outsmarts Gregory for a second time by once again taking on a new persona. Since he recognizes that the other anarchists are naïve and easily manipulable, he knows how to win their support. Curiously, the reader has met Syme the poet and Syme the agitator, but never the real Syme. The next chapter will finally give them a chance to understand his true intentions and motives.
Themes
Literary Devices
After Syme is elected as Thursday, Gregory privately calls Syme “a devil” and accuses him of entrapping him. But Syme replies that both of them are simply doing what they view as the right thing. Comrade Buttons leads Syme to a door that opens directly onto the river, and Syme goes to board the tugboat that’s waiting for him. Before he leaves, he thanks Gregory for keeping his word—including by giving him the “very entertaining evening” he promised.
It’s ironic that Gregory calls Syme a “devil” because, allegorically speaking, Syme clearly represents good and Gregory clearly represents evil. (In fact, their first names—Gabriel and Lucian—link them to the archangel Gabriel and Lucifer, respectively.) While Gregory views his conflict with Syme in personal terms, Syme views it in purely ideological ones. He has nothing against Gregory as an individual; they are just pursuing two different, incompatible visions of how they think the world should be. Yet this response of Syme’s is also partially facetious, because he knows that Gregory claims not to believe in good or evil at all. In other words, Syme is pointing out that it’s impossible to believe in no values at all—anarchists worship power and destruction, so they can never legitimately claim to be against all moral values.
Themes
