48 pages • 1 hour read
Nikos KazantzakisZorba the Greek
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1946A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 19-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 19 Summary
The narrator and Zorba see Hortense when they near the village. Being asked for marriage has made Hortense take on a more virtuous but more grotesque appearance: “Ever since the moment when the great hope – marriage – flickered in her mind, our aged siren had lost all her shady, unmentionable charms […] She no longer used makeup, jewelry, or soap. She stank” (213). Hortense pressures Zorba to quickly marry her, and Zorba pities her. She asks why he didn’t bring marriage wreaths back from Iraklio. Zorba lies, telling her there weren’t any good ones and that he ordered her a bridal gown. Hortense tells Zorba she brought him a gift. Reluctantly, Zorba opens it to find rings and accepts them. They walk out to the beach where the narrator is called to witness Zorba and Hortense’s engagement. However, Zorba does not want to spend the night with Hortense and makes an excuse about protecting her virtue. When they leave her, Zorba shares his view of Zeus, who he thinks had affairs with women out of pity for them. Zorba speculates that he should open a marriage bureau to help unmarried women find husbands.
Chapter 20 Summary
As they return to the hut, Zorba mentions being satisfied with the day. They talk about the next day, when they will set the cable railway’s first pylon. A priest is also slated to come, which Zorba thinks will be good for the village, given the villagers’ religious sensibilities.
During their conversation later that night, the narrator asks Zorba if he has fought for his country. Zorba is reluctant to discuss it but eventually confesses that he was once a patriot, “a stalwart, a wild beast head to toe,” having embroidered an image of Saint Sophia with his hair (224). He shows the narrator his scars from swords and bullets. He talks about killing a Bulgarian priest for killing a Greek schoolmaster. Upon learning the priest had five children now left orphaned, Zorba left behind his image of Saint Sophia.
He claims he was rescued from his patriotism and believes that all men are the same. Women, in his view, are weak and surrender easily. He relates how a Bulgarian woman named Ludmilla protected him, but he burned down her village anyway. The narrator is envious of Zorba’s experiences. He cannot sleep. In the morning, spring grants him better spirits. He and Zorba set off to celebrate the start of work on the cable railway. After the priest gives his blessing, Zorba and the men get to work.
Chapter 21 Summary
They plan to spend Easter with Hortense and arrange to celebrate her past in her honor, but she is late. Mimithos arrives and tells them that she is ill. Zorba goes to see her and says she has a cold. He and the narrator eat and drink. Zorba wants to dance. The narrator is shocked that Zorba doesn’t seem to respect the day. Zorba believes that God does not concern himself with details and is no different from the devil. He leaves for the village.
Upon finding himself alone, the narrator feels his body moving forward by instinct, having “jumped up on its own accord, having arrived at a decision without having asked” until he encounters the widow (236). He still feels anxious and thinks of Zorba for courage, especially his words, “women and wine galore, sea and work galore” (237). He makes an overture and spends the night with her.
The next morning, Zorba waits for the narrator in the hut, happy that the narrator was finally with the widow. The narrator naps and goes to the sea after he wakes up. Zorba brings the narrator food and goes to work. The narrator feels content. He finishes his manuscript and feels that the Buddha has “dissolved” within him and is no longer necessary. Mimithos arrives looking for Zorba because Hortense continues sick. The narrator goes to see her and lies to explain Zorba’s absence, saying that he is sick too. He sends the boy to get a doctor because the widow’s illness is serious. The boy mentions that the widow sent the narrator a bottle of orange water, but the narrator tells him to go quickly.
Chapters 19-21 Analysis
Zorba’s feverish work on the cable railway exemplifies his philosophy of no half measures. This approach also explains why, upon being committed to Hortense as a joke by the narrator, Zorba feels that he must follow through. Zorba feels pity not only for Hortense, but for all women, due to their weakness and their desire for marriage and company. His views resonate with the narrator’s memories of the older servant woman who desperately wanted to marry, as well as with Zorba’s earlier story about an older woman who put on airs, showing that all women want to be desired by men.
Zorba lived this philosophy of no half measures as a patriot years ago, demonstrated through his brief affair with Ludmilla, the Bulgarian widow who protected him. Back then, Zorba’s patriotism ruled him, and he set fire to her village without regard for her. He abandons his patriotism after he kills a priest and later realizes he orphaned the priest’s five children.
The narrator is inspired by this philosophy. When he finds himself alone after Easter dinner, he walks to the village. He mentions that this action is completely bodily, that there is no thought. The narrator murmurs Zorba’s words as a fortifying mantra, signaling that his abstract thinking won’t help him in this moment. After he sleeps with the widow, the narrator feels as if he’s achieved the authenticity that he aspired to. He finishes his manuscript and feels the Buddha in him vanish.
