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Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Erasure, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Race and Identity
Familial Obligation vs. Personal Needs
Artistic Integrity vs. Commercial Success
Authenticity
Summary
Analysis
Ten days pass. Monk takes walks with Marilyn, and they admit they like each other. On one occasion, Mother tells Marilyn about Monk’s new book. Marilyn mentions this to Monk later when the two of them are drinking wine together on the dock. Monk lies and says the book is a retelling of The Satyricon. She says she read one of his earlier books, The Second Failure, and liked it. Monk considers how well things are going with Marilyn and wonders if he will “eventually alienate her” and ruin everything. He looks out onto the water and sees Lorraine and Maynard drift by in a little skiff, laughing together. He wants to be happy for Lorraine, but all he can think about is Mother in the house alone.
Monk’s unwillingness to tell Marilyn about My Pafology indicates that he is still too ashamed of what the book might suggest about him to take ownership of it. He continues to hide behind the veneer of high culture and intellectual pretension and to deny any show of raw, inarticulate emotion. And Monk’s fear that he will “eventually alienate [Marilyn]” and doom their relationship before it’s had a chance to really begin shows that Monk knows this behavioral pattern is destructive—but he doesn’t know how to let it go just yet.
Themes
Monk’s thoughts drift back to his struggles to speak African American vernacular growing up. He’d try, but it would always come out sounding forced. The other kids would describe him as “awkward,” noting how he sounded “white” and “stuck up.”
This memory gives the reader additional insight into how and why Monk has come to rely on intellectual pretension in his personal and professional life: it is a weak point he has repurposed as a defense mechanism. Rather than reflect on difficult questions about racial identity, he doubles down on the “white” and “stuck up” way of speaking that alienated him from his Black peers as a child.
Themes
Monk’s diary segues into a short story he’s written, titled “Àppropos de bottes.” The story follows a Black man named Tom who shows up at the NBC building to fill out an application to be on a trivia show called Virtute et Armis. He returns the application to the show’s receptionist, who hands him a test. Tom easily answers all the questions, which span a range of topics from history to math to science. After Tom’s time is up, the receptionist tells Tom that the studio will call him if they decide to use him on the show. Tom says he doesn’t have a phone and will just wait here for his results.
Despite Monk’s earlier insistence that he does not “believe in race,” diary entries like this story draft show that Monk often thinks about race and racial identity in critical, nuanced ways, especially since writing My Pafology and assuming the “role” of Stagg R. Leigh. Virtute et Armis is a Latin phrase, translating to “by valor and weapons.” Notably, this is the state motto of Mississippi.
Themes
Eventually, a producer named Damien Blanc approaches Tom and tells him he did very well on the test and asks if Tom would like to appear on the show that night. Tom agrees. That evening, Tom returns to the NBC building. The staff prep him for TV, covering his face with a dark cream because he “ain’t quite dark enough.” He looks in the mirror at his newly dark skin and feels “like a clown.” He asks if he really has to wear the dark cream on TV, and the makeup staff say yes—if he doesn’t, it might confuse the viewers.
The staff’s explanation that Tom “ain’t quite dark enough” raises the question of for whom Tom “ain’t quite dark enough.” Notably, this is a complaint Monk has received from the publishing industry, which repeatedly deems his novels not “Black enough.” This story draft thus functions as an exercise for Monk to work through some of his frustration with the publishing industry and his own inner conflicts over race and racial identity.
Themes
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Later, Tom takes his place onstage alongside his competitor, a white man from Indiana named Hal Dullard. The show begins. The host, Jack Spades, introduces Hal as a social worker, president of the PTA, and father of two. Spades introduces Tom as “from Mississippi.” The game begins. Spades gives Mr. Dullard his question first, asking him to name “a primary color.” Dullard answers, “green.” The audience gasps. Next it’s Tom’s turn. Spades asks him, “What is anaphase?” Tom answers correctly and in great detail. Spades acknowledges Tom’s correct answer but doesn’t congratulate him.
The ease with which Tom passed the show’s entrance test indicates that he is highly intelligent, and his success at answering Spades’s questions correctly and thoroughly reaffirms this. The indifference (and perhaps even annoyance) with which Spades responds to Tom’s correct answers suggests that Tom is upsetting his (and the audience’s) expectations for the intellectual capacity of a Black man. Meanwhile, Dullard’s lack of intelligence contradicts his long list of accolades (though it aligns with his last name). In Monk’s short story, then, the game show examines racial stereotypes and what happens when people like Tom contradict those.
Themes
The show continues in this manner, with Spades posing painfully easy questions to Dullard, who confidently and unwittingly responds with incorrect answers. Tom, meanwhile, continues to answer his own increasingly difficult, specific questions correctly and in great detail. With each correct answer, Spades grows increasingly upset. In the end, Spades grudgingly announces Tom as the show’s new champion.
In Monk’s short story, the game show symbolizes mainstream attitudes toward race as a whole, but it also reflects Monk’s personal experience and frustration with the publishing industry, which only grudgingly “allows” him to assume rank among the intellectual elite. They would rather he (or in the story, Tom) play the role they’ve decided he should play. The Black man may compete alongside the white man—so long as he doesn’t outperform him and upset the status quo.
Themes
