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Chapter 4
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
Tom goes back to his family’s Boston home and finds his father, Bromfield, reading. Bromfield compliments Tom’s new clothes, which Tom picked up on a stop in New York, but Bromfield also notes that the clothes must have been expensive. Bromfield suggests that since Tom is back, he should consider getting married. Bromfield doesn’t want Tom to marry just for money, but he figures it’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich girl as a poor one, so why not pick a rich one.
Bromfield is the total opposite of Lapham, an old-fashioned Boston aristocrat who cares so little about work that he’d rather see Tom marry for money than work. Unlike the straightforward Lapham, Bromfield is often ironic, and it can be hard sometimes to tell whether or not he’s really serious. Bromfield brings up serious topics, like Tom’s potential marriage, very casually, showing the relaxed way that he goes through life in general due to his relative freedom from work and responsibilities.
Active
Themes
Still on the topic of marriage, Bromfield asks about the Laphams, whom Tom used to visit the previous summer. Tom admits that Irene is rich but says Lapham might be too focused on business and not educated enough to meet Bromfield’s approval. Tom himself, however, liked him when he recently spoke with him.
Although Tom is from an aristocratic family, he also represents a new generation who is perhaps a little less tied to the old traditions than someone like Bromfield. Tom is aware of the supposed flaws in a less cultured man like Lapham, but Tom places less importance on these flaws than Bromfield does.
Active
Themes
Bromfield asks more about Lapham’s flaws. Tom says that Lapham bragged, and not just about money, which is unusual in Boston. But Tom assures Bromfield that Lapham is “simple-hearted and rather wholesome.” Tom mentions that he isn’t sure about the mineral paint industry, but he supposes that it’s probably time for him to get involved with some job.
Active
Themes
Bromfield disapproves of Tom’s decision to work: he wishes people would let go of their shame of living off parents or spouses and embrace being aristocrats. But as he thinks about the matter more, he sees no reason why Tom shouldn’t get involved in mineral paints. Bromfield wants to invite Lapham to dinner, but Tom thinks that’s a bad strategy. Instead, Tom wants to have a friend of Bromfield’s put in a good word for Tom to Lapham.
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Tom says he’ll have to look more into Lapham and think the matter over before deciding for sure. Bromfield applauds Lapham’s initiative in thinking up the idea to get into the mineral paint business.
Active
Themes
Bromfield and Tom both go off to bed, and Bromfield thinks about how his own father pushed him to take up a trade against Bromfield’s objections. Instead of taking a job, Bromfield proposed a compromise: traveling. Bromfield went around the world, developing a moderate talent for painting portraits. But since he didn’t need money, he didn’t charge for the portraits and eventually started painting less and less. Today, he continues to live off his father’s money.
Active
Themes
After putting Irene and Penelope to bed, Lapham repeats to Persis that he really thinks he could turn Tom into a man by teaching him about mineral paints.
Active
Themes
