Tropic of Cancer

These chapters of the novel introduce more new characters, and while Henry’s interactions with them are more substantial than those in the first four chapters, these characters seem to have been included only as subjects of derision and mockery. It is notable that all of them are from Eastern Europe or India, and the text zeroes in on their status as “other” very aggressively. Olga and Serge are from Bulgaria and Russia, respectively, and Henry openly makes fun of their bodies, the way they speak, and their customs; he also feels particular disgust for their homes and depicts these spaces as intolerably smelly and filthy. The Indian characters fare no better; Henry portrays Nanantatee and Kepi as dishonest, greedy, and oversexed and the visiting disciple as naïve and silly. The latter seems to have been introduced only so that Henry can experience an epiphany about the true nature of the world, a realization that is inspired by the man’s unnecessary humiliation.

Tropic of Cancer’s interest in exploring the lives of people from different racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds is characteristic of urban literature, both fiction and nonfiction. Since the 18th century, the “city novel” as a broad category has included non-white, non-European, and non-Christian characters, although many of these representations are now being reevaluated as potentially reflective of racist attitudes. Moreover, beginning in the 19th century, urban social reformers began cataloging groups of people in various cities, often along racial lines. For example, Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor (1851) categorized people based not only on their job, but also on their ethnicity, a practice that by its very nature compelled the reformers to stereotype the customs and beliefs of large swathes of people. While it must be noted that such harmful stereotypes are prevalent throughout the entire text, this section of Tropic of Cancer offers particularly potent examples of how racist, colonialist, and imperialist attitudes have survived in literature into the 20th century.

These chapters also offer a deepening of Henry’s relationship with art, specifically as a means of transcending his immediate reality. This happens most notably when he attends the concert at the Salle Gaveau, for not only does he lose all sense of time and place, but the music inspires him to reconsider what constitutes a successful, authentic artistic achievement. In leading him to imagine a woman’s subjective experience of the act of penetration, the concert also strengthens the novel’s broader connection between sex and art as different but related forms of production.

Additionally, this section includes a number of references to death. However, in all of these scenes, the death is never permanent and those who seem to experience it are actually still alive. In a description of Paris, for example, he says, “The people who live here are dead”; he also imagines a woman at the concert suddenly having a hemorrhage (64, 77). These moments of death-in-life foreshadow Henry’s expanded engagement with eschatological vitalism, or the idea that an apocalyptic death can potentially clear the way for more life. As Henry’s philosophical musings start to dominate the narrative more strongly, his awareness of the complex relationship between life and death also gains increasing significance.