Last Exit to Brooklyn

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1964

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Parts 3-4

Part 5

Part 6

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

The Greek Diner

The Greek diner is a social hub in Last Exit to Brooklyn, symbolizing the tight knit nature of the community, where every story is interwoven with the next. In the cramped conditions of the Brooklyn public housing estate, people’s stories cannot be kept separate. Instead, characters like Harry and Vinnie interact even if they have little in common. Vinnie, for example, appears across several stories. Whether he is scamming Harry or abusing Georgette’s affections, his life revolves around the Greek diner. Because the diner intermingles characters with wildly different personalities, it represents how the neighborhood’s privation pushes people up against each other—to their benefit and their detriment.

The Greek diner is also an important symbol of the local multiculturalism. Alex, who owns the diner, is a representative of the Greek immigrant community. He uses Greek words and phrases—often mumbled or interpolated in the text—and sprinkles his spoken English with hints to his ethnic identity. Very few of his customers are Greek. He serves Italians, African Americans, and anyone else in the community who happens to wander in. The characters may mock one another’s race or ethnicity, but they passively accept that places like the Greek diner are, by their very nature, symbols of Brooklyn’s diversity. Even if the characters have little in common beyond their material conditions, they are brought together by a diner that caters to all races, cultures, and ethnicities.

Selby’s Brooklyn is more than familiar with crime, and the diner represents the vague lines between moral and immoral, between legal and illegal. Both petty criminals and law-abiding citizens mingle over cups of coffee. They listen to the same music and tell the same stories to Alex, as all the customers exist in the same world and are subject to the same forces in their lives. The diner symbolizes the lack of distinction between the criminals and the law-abiding citizens, and the ease with which one can become another. By blending the characters in this cramped establishment, the novel reveals that crime and immorality are everyone’s neighbors in Brooklyn, always in proximity and enjoying the same business establishments.

Vehicles

Vehicles are important symbols in Last Exit to Brooklyn and symbolize different things according to their owners. For Tommy in Part 3, they represent the potential for escape from the crushing poverty of the neighborhood, in both a physical and mental sense. Tommy treasures his motorcycle, which, for him, is a way out of the constant grind of poverty: His motorcycle gives him his livelihood as a mechanic, a means to improve his impoverished material conditions. He can also travel outside the city and see other parts of the world, and this opportunity to escape the city—even if only temporarily—is a form of release. For men like Tommy, the motorcycle symbolizes a freedom and escape that are not available to most borough residents.

Like Abraham’s clothes and his haircut, everything about his Cadillac is meticulously cared for, and Abraham has no qualms about spending liberally to maintain the car’s pristine luxury. Nevertheless, he lives in a low-income neighborhood. The Cadillac symbolizes its owner’s egotism and disconnect from his family: His children and wife occupy a cramped, rundown apartment while Abraham does the hard work of self-indulgence, spending money on his own image and comfort. Each service and valet Abraham purchases for his car is money not spent on his family’s pressing needs. The car thus further symbolizes his failure as a father and provider.

When the factory workers strike in Part 5, a fleet of trucks is hired to break the picket line. Despite the strike, the trucks pass through the workers and into the factory to help the bosses continue to make money. The strike is the workers’ chance to improve their material conditions and escape from poverty, and their resources are dwindling, so the trucks present a clear threat to their goal; they act violently toward the trucks because they believe that the trucks are endangering their escape from poverty.

The Children’s Games

In Part 6, the children of the public housing play a violent game. They replicate the battles between “cowboys and indians” (131) that they know from the television. The young boys reenact this televised violence just like they reenact their parents’ abusive behavior. The combat in the games is a symbolic preparation for later life. Upon adulthood, the children will be caught in the same cycle of violence that traps their parents—but this time, it will not be a game. By learning to fight (and to beat) one another, they are also symbolically preparing for life in the neighborhood. The game of “cowboys and indians” (131) is a symbolic replica of life in the Greek diner or on the streets.

During one of the violent games, a parent exits the building and drags his son away. He criticizes the children for their violence and refuses to allow his son to engage. For all the father’s hard work, however, he cannot stop the cycle. As soon as the boy is withdrawn from the fight, he is instantly replaced by another. The individual agents of violence do not matter, as they are only bit part players in a larger perpetual sequence. Even if one individual is removed, the cycle seamlessly continues with replacements. The game continues, just like life in Brooklyn always goes on.

While the game symbolizes the ensnaring cyclical violence, the children themselves enjoy the game. They resent being locked up by their parents and try to recreate the game indoors (much to their parents’ displeasure). This eagerness to participate symbolizes a visceral thrill: The children are attracted to the excitement and the energy of the game, just as they will be attracted to the excitement and energy of crime and violence. The children who are locked up inside symbolize the yearning for a rousing life, however unscrupulous; a key reason for the cycle’s continuation is the children’s fascination, which in turn symbolizes temptation.