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Chapter 2
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Rise of Silas Lapham, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Class
Realism vs. Melodrama
Love and Communication
Morality and Compassion
Summary
Analysis
One winter, a Texas newspaper arrives in the mail for Irene. She takes it to her room and reads it very carefully. Lapham and Persis suspect it might be from a potential suitor (Tom Corey) who used to come by to visit and is currently away at the Texas ranch belonging to a man named Stanton. The newspaper has an article about Stanton’s ranch.
A newspaper article about a ranch is not a particularly romantic gift, and yet, it seems to be of great interest to Irene. This newspaper provides an early example of how small gestures and subtle communication play a major role in this story—and how that can lead to miscommunication.
Active
Themes
Literary Devices
By spring, everyone realizes that actually, Lapham wasn’t joking about building a new house in a fashionable neighborhood. Lapham has strong ideas about what he wants for the house, but the architect manages to gently persuade him to do what’s fashionable instead.
This passage shows once again how Lapham struggles to understand the nuances of high society. While he correctly identifies the upper-class neighborhood where he should build a house, his ideas for how to construct the house risk undermining all his attempts to be more fashionable.
Active
Themes
Work begins on the house in April. But clearing the foundation of the house (which involves digging into a salt marsh) causes such a smell that it starts annoying the other people in the neighborhood. Lapham watches obliviously with joy as the builders start constructing the house, but by the time the foundation is done, few people are left living in the neighborhood.
Active
Themes
Shortly after dropping off Bartley after his interview, Lapham and Persis take a carriage down to view progress on their new house. All of a sudden, Persis points out a tall, thin man: Rogers, Lapham’s former business partner, who has come from Chicago and is considering moving his family to Boston. Persis makes awkward small talk with him while Lapham says nothing.
Active
Themes
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When Rogers is gone, Persis says she always feels guilty when she sees Rogers. Lapham insists that all his business arrangements with Rogers were “perfectly square.” Persis says that Rogers’s money saved the paint company, then Lapham forced him out, but Lapham insisted he gave Rogers a real choice. He asks Persis not to meddle, but she insists she’ll always meddle when it’s necessary. They both get angry, and Persis says that their new, in-progress house has been built with blood money.
