Cosmopolis – Chapter 4
P. 159
- Eric goes to the apartment/street where his father had grown up
- Eric never lived there himself
- “He wanted to feel it, every rueful nuance of longing. But it wasn’t his longing or
yearning or sense of that past.”
- “He was feeling what his father would feel standing in this place.”
Why do you think Eric wanted to visit his father’s home? What is
significant about it to him?
P. 160-161
- Eric at the barbershop to finally get a haircut
- His father had brought him there, had his hair cut there
- Anthony tells him the same story of how his father was diagnosed and passed
away – said he needed that (the consistency)
- Eric is fascinated by his driver’s collapsed eye
- Eric is tired at the barbershop and leans back in his chair and begins to fall
asleep, “What can be simpler than falling asleep?”
-Tells Anthony and driver about the credible threat (confides in them)
- Says that the barbershop is where he felt safe
**Why do you think that Eric feels safe here? Safe enough that he even falls
asleep.
p. 169
- Eric doesn’t think it matters all that much to take the gun
- “He is afraid the night was over, and the threat should have taken material form
soon after Torval went down but it hadn’t, from that point to this he began to think
that it never would. This was the coldest possible prospect that no one was out
there. It left him in a suspended state, all that was worldly and consequential in a
blurry ruin behind him but no culminating moment ahead.” Why do you think
that Eric feels this way?
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Eric rushes out of the barber’s chair, his haircut only have finished
Takes the revolver
Rides up front with Ibrahim
They come upon the scene being filmed in a movie
- Naked bodies filled a portion of the street
- Eric takes off his clothes and joins them
- Why do you think he is compelled to do this?
Moment of Utopia/”a better world” – moment of nudity – can’t judge them on their
clothes, equally, true identity is exposed
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What version of freedom and equality do we get in this scene?
(Staged, but not given direction)
Get rid of clothes, we look radically unique
o It’s not imposed equality (like Fight Club), but equal in a way that
we are unique
Freedom is a form of liberation, allows us to express our uniqueness
He describes this as a strong experience even though they are extras in a
scene… dead and alive together
Next to a woman he thinks could be Elise as they are talking (neither can
see each other’s face from the position they are in)
When Eric closes his eyes it is no longer clear to him
His mind is isolating him and that is not what he wants
Wants to feel apart of them, be one of them
When the scene ended Elise took his had, they went back into the dark
room and had sex, Why do you think only in having passionate sex
with her does Eric say he feels he finally knows Elise? And then
loves her?
- Eric gets out of limo, him and Ibrahim embrace
- Intends to drive his own car home
- For the first time he felt there was nothing to do… no sense of purpose or
urgency
- Shots fired at him
- He fired back at the building, said that it was the target and that solved so many
problems of who or whom?
-Conversation with himself/gun about movies he used to see with his mother,
where he left his sunglasses, Torval and his weapon, Nancy Babich – the nature
of their relationship, their sex, how she undresses, imagines her
- Could say Torval’s name until he thought about what went on between him and
Nancy… What do you think Eric means when he says, “How many times do
I have to kill him?”
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Conversation with Benno Levin
Eric feels a sense of guilt. Why do you think he shoots himself in the hand?
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Eric wasn’t sure if he was suffering, but was sure Benno was
Eric and Benno both have asymmetrical prostates, means nothing
Benno says that Eric has to die because of the person he is, the
apartment he has, etc. the way he thinks and talks, the way he effects
everyone
Image of the body he saw outside stays on his watch even though it is out
of range of the camera
Sees scene in ambulance, then morgue “Male Z” (unidentified)
- He’d come to know himself through his pain
- He is dead inside but still alive in original space, waiting for the shot
Why do you think Eric feels this way? Do you think he ends up be
killed? Does it matter? Why do you think DeLillo ended this way?
Comparison of Eric and Richard (Benno)
Comparison of ending to American Psycho to end of Cosmopolis.
- Contrast between Cosmopolis and Fight Club
o Eric and Benno (Benno decides he has to get rid of Eric)
 Different people, but have worked at the same firm
o Narrator and Tyler (Narrator decides that he has to get rid of Tyler)
 Tyler no longer heroic, but against the system
- Is DeLillo rewriting Fight Club?
How do we interpret the novel?
- 28 chapters vs. 4 chapters
- 1st person personal (Fight Club) vs. 3rd person (Cosmopolis)
o Cosmopolis – no longer having to pick sides
o Classical Greek Philosophical Play – Characters represent ideas
that exist in our society, tension between them
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Space
Time
Unequal social relations
Planning out the future, can’t live in the present
Social standing prevent us from being able to connect