Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Sirens of Titan, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Free Will vs. External Control
Religion and the Search for Meaning
Wealth, Power, and Inequality
Human Intelligence, Foolishness, and Hubris
Summary
Analysis
Constant and Beatrice both live to be 74 years old, and die within 24 hours of each other. Before Constant’s death, he lives inside Salo’s spaceship, which Constant never tries to fly because it’s too complicated. However, he does manage to find the place where the good-luck piece fits into the spaceship. During his years living on Titan, Constant passes the time by trying to put Salo back together, at first hoping Salo might agree to fly Chrono back to Earth. Constant and Beatrice themselves aren’t very eager to go back. However, when Constant reaches 74, Chrono is already 42, and is thriving in his life on Titan. He lives in the nests of the Titanic birds, and even speaks their language.
Again, just as Boaz and Unk decided to live separately after a year on Mercury, so do the strange family made up of the surviving humans on Titan choose to have distance from one another. This could be interpreted as a representation of how difficult it is to love other people even when there is literally no one else around. At the same time, it is also arguably a product of the bizarre and distressing circumstances under which the humans on Titan find themselves living.
Themes
Constant almost never sees Chrono, although he occasionally hears him, and sometimes he finds shrines Chrono has made. Constant tidies up the shrines, and feels respect for “what his son [is] trying to do with religion.” Beatrice lives by herself in the Taj Mahal replica. Once in a great while, Chrono comes to see her, and they have fights about civilization that end with Chrono ripping off his clothes and screaming. After this happens, Beatrice signals for Constant to come and comfort her. Beatrice is beautiful, though likely somewhat insane.
It is curious that Constant frames Chrono’s decision to live as a bird and make shrines as a religious practice. In the West, religion is strongly associated with human civilization, although in other parts of the world religious belief has much more to do with the natural world. Perhaps it is in one of these latter traditions that Chrono is practicing his new “faith.”
Themes
Beatrice is writing a book called The True Purpose of Life in the Solar System which rejects the idea that human existence was controlled by the Tralfamadorians to help Salo complete his mission. Sometimes she reads parts of the manuscript to Constant, as she does now. Constant isn’t really listening. Instead, he is focused on the pool, which is covered in slime. He has never figured out how to clean it, and now the sirens of Titan are hidden by the gross mulch on the water’s surface. Beatrice says she has an idea, and goes to look at the portrait of herself as a little girl, dressed in white. She concludes that the worst possible fate a person could have would be to never be “used” for any purpose.
Beatrice’s rather pointless book could be seen as a satirical gesture toward the pointlessness of all literature. After all, it might seem ludicrous that Beatrice is writing a book that almost certainly no one except her and Constant will read, but perhaps there is no real logical reason behind any decision to write a book, other than some (inexplicable) urge.
Themes
Constant attempts to drain the pool and sweeps the courtyard while he waits for the water to recede. As he watches the water drain, he suddenly realizes that there is a sound missing—the sound of Beatrice’s breathing. She is dead. Constant buries her body on the shore of the Winston Sea, in a spot free of statues. An enormous flock of birds appears in the sky, all of whom silently witness the “funeral.” Chrono appears, wearing a feather cape. He thanks his parents for giving him the “gift of life,” then flies off.
The strangely poetic scene of Beatrice’s funeral and death viscerally conjures what it would be like to live on a planet with only three other humans, such that it would be possible to hear someone die simply by the sound of their breath ceasing.
Themes
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Back at the palace, Salo comes to greet Constant and thanks him for putting him back together. Constant admits he thought he’d gotten it wrong when Salo remained silent, but Salo explains that he couldn’t decide if he wanted to wake up. He has now decided to continue on his mission, seeing as he’s already gotten this far. Constant says that Beatrice died, and that he misses her. He explains that he only fell in love with her one Earthling year ago, when he finally realized that “a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”
The detail that it took until their final year together for Constant and Beatrice to fall in love can be interpreted as a commentary on humanity’s needlessly stubborn resistance to falling in love, which often takes the form of self-inflicted harm. (The fact that Constant once raped Beatrice is obviously a good reason for her not to love him, though some readers at the time of the book’s publication may not have thought this obvious.)
Themes
Salo offers Constant and Chrono a ride back to Earth. Constant explains that Chrono has joined the birds, but that he himself will accept the ride. During the journey, Salo worries that bringing Constant back to Earth was a mistake. Constant asks to be dropped in Indianapolis, which concerns Salo, because it is not a very hospitable environment for “a homeless old man.” However, Constant wants to go there because it was the first place that a white man was hanged for killing a Native man, and this is the kind of place he belongs. Salo makes grieving sounds with his feet. He tries to reassure himself by reminding himself that Constant has some money and clothing, which he took from Rumfoord’s palace.
It is intriguing that Constant’s experience living on Titan (as well as the other bizarre events that have taken place over the course of the novel) has instilled a sense of justice in him, particularly regarding the genocidal history of the U.S. Indeed, the idea that Indianapolis is a symbol of justice is clearly meant somewhat facetiously. At the same time, as the book has shown, justice often emerges in unlikely places.
Themes
Just before they reach Earth, Salo hypnotizes Constant, implanting a soothing illusion in his mind that will appear when he dies. The spaceship lands at three a.m. in the middle of the Indiana winter. Salo lets Constant out and directs him toward a bus stop, telling him the bus will come in about ten minutes, and that he can ask the driver to take him to a hotel. Constant assures Salo that he is “warm as toast.” Salo feels snow on his face. They bid each other goodbye, and Constant walks over to the bus stop, while Salo gets back in his ship. Because of the snow, the bus is two hours delayed. By the time it comes, Constant has frozen to death. However, as he dies, he experiences the illusion placed in his mind by Salo.
Salo’s final act of kindness and generosity means that the novel has a somewhat happy ending, albeit a bit of a tragicomic, bizarre, and bleak one. On one level, this could be interpreted as a final comment on the meaningless brutality of life, such that the only thing a person can hope for is to die in the midst of a delusion. However, perhaps the message is actually that the best a person can hope for is to receive an act of love before death.
Themes
The illusion is that Constant is reunited with Stony Stevenson. A diamond-encrusted spaceship lets Stony out, still wearing his Martian uniform. He invites Constant into the spaceship, telling him it will take him to “paradise,” where “everybody’s happy forever.” Stony says that Beatrice is waiting there for him. Constant is shocked that he is being let into paradise, and Stony replies, “somebody up there likes you.”
Again, this ending is tragicomic and bittersweet. Constant’s arrival in paradise and reunion with Stony is only an illusion. Yet Stony’s statement—“somebody up there likes you”—is actually true. That “somebody,” however, is not God. It is Salo.
Themes
