Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Zoot Suit, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism, Nationalism, and Scapegoating
Self-Presentation and Cultural Identity
Public Perception and the Press
Advocates vs. Saviors
Summary
Analysis
In solitary confinement, Henry talks to El Pachuco, who urges him to accept his current circumstances, saying that this is the only way he’ll get through isolation. Henry, for his part, says he can’t accustom himself to solitary confinement, but El Pachuco tells Henry that this is the only reality that exists for him. Trying to embrace this mindset, Henry considers the possibility that the appeal might actually work, but El Pachuco tells him to be realistic, saying that he should know better than to think he’ll actually see justice. What Henry should do, El Pachuco claims, is protect his loved ones by giving up his hope and letting hate fuel him.
What El Pachuco tells Henry in this moment is somewhat difficult to parse. He urges him to accept his current circumstances, but this advice is only geared at helping Henry stay sane while in solitary confinement. Indeed, El Pachuco doesn’t urge him to accept everything about his situation, but just that there’s nothing to do but wait to be let out of solitary confinement. On the whole, though, El Pachuco urges Henry to abandon any other forms of optimism, encouraging him to see everyone but himself and his fellow gang members as enemies. This, of course, means giving up hope that Alice and other white allies will be able to help him.
Themes
Henry gets mad at El Pachuco for advancing such a bleak vision of the world. Insisting that he doesn’t need El Pachuco anymore, Henry tells him to go away, but El Pachuco simply laughs and tells Henry not to take the play so seriously. Snapping his fingers, El Pachuco says that Henry ought to see what’s happening at that moment in the streets of Los Angeles, where violence has broken out.
Again, El Pachuco calls attention to the fact that he and Henry exist in a play. This time, though, he says this as a way of transitioning away from prison to focus on a more widespread kind of unrest. As he does so, he implies that Henry’s specific predicament isn’t quite as serious as the larger, systemic problems that are taking hold of American society.
Themes
