48 pages • 1 hour read
Zorba the Greek
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Chapters 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary
Zorba stays in Iraklio for longer than three stays. On the sixth day, the narrator receives a letter in which Zorba declares he doesn’t care about anything save being alive or dead. Zorba writes, “old age is a huge disgrace” (153). He feels that he is young at heart. This version of him fights against his outer, old exterior. He wants to successfully build the cable railway because failure means disgrace. He mentions that he lives life with no hesitation, just doing as he wishes. He feels free in Iraklio, so he goes to a cafe. There he meets Lola, a woman who at first calls him “grandpa.” Zorba assuages his offense by seducing her with his money. Eventually, she asks him to spend the night with her.
Zorba spends the rest of his time in Iraklio having an affair with Lola, indolently looking for the building materials. Zorba closes the letter by describing how Lola wanted to go to a festival while Zorba wanted to stay in. He urges her to go alone, but she refuses. Zorba tells her she is free, but she argues she does not want to be free. Zorba asks the narrator, if human beings are defined by freedom, then are women human beings? The narrator does not know how to feel about Zorba’s letter. He takes Zorba’s remarks as a testament of his authenticity and existence outside an intellectual frame. The narrator misses Zorba and telegrams him to return.
Chapter 14 Summary
While the narrator is writing, Hortense approaches him, asking about a letter from Zorba. He lies to her, saying that Zorba has written about her and pretending to read what Zorba wrote, making up passages where Zorba claims to miss Hortense. This sends Hortense on a flight of fancy, reliving her past affairs. She later asks the narrator if Zorba wrote more, and the narrator adds that Zorba wants to marry her. Hortense accepts, now having “taken on the majestic air of a married matron” and asks the narrator to be their witness (167). The narrator remembers being asked this by a servant woman he pitied.
As they speak, they hear tumult from the beach. The body of Pavli, the lovesick son of village elder Mavrandoni, has been found ashore. He committed suicide over the widow. The villagers blame her even though the narrator scolds them for it. He talks to Anagnosti, who thinks suicide was the boy’s salvation because a relationship with the widow wouldn’t have gone well. Anagnosti takes his words back, saying, “If a widow happens to cross your path, pounce on her!” (171). Later on, the widow sends Mimithos, the errand boy, with oranges to thank the narrator for defending her.
Chapter 15 Summary
The narrator goes to the mountains to visit an old Minoan city. A shepherd asks him for cigarettes, but the narrator has none. He offers the shepherd money, but the shepherd turns it down. The shepherd asks what he’s doing, and the narrator tells him he is studying antiquity. The shepherd asks for what purpose, and the narrator replies none. The shepherd dismisses him, saying, “Those people are dead; we’re alive” (175).
The narrator goes back to the beach and sees cranes take to the sky. He is anguished by the passage of time. After walking on the beach, he is approached by an elderly man, his wife, and a girl. They are going to the convent and ask if the narrator is as well. The narrator says yes. The man asks if he’s part of the Coal Company, and he praises the narrator for giving jobs to the men in the village. When the man realizes the mining isn’t going well, he says God will reward the narrator. As they walk, they talk, and the narrator asks the man what his favorite dish is. The man replies that it is a sin to choose “because there are people who are hungry” (177). The narrator is ashamed of himself. As they reach the convent, the man speaks of miracles.
The narrator enjoys the chanting as an art and speaks to the mother superior. She tells him of an epileptic nun who will be cured in ten to fifteen years. This seems like a long time to the narrator, but the nun compares it to eternity. The narrator returns home in the evening and thinks of eternity. The world is a shorthand for beliefs, the cast of the latest being “Buddha,” although the narrator isn’t sure. He goes out to swim in the sea.
Chapters 13-15 Analysis
The narrator is struck by how the passage of time, and aging specifically, affects decisions and dreams. Zorba’s letter brings aging into relief through his relationship with Lola, who calls him “grandad.” His relationship with her is his response to aging, since in her company Zorba claims to feel younger. In turn, the narrator ponders on Anagnosti’s claim that Pavli’s premature death saved him from the troubles of life, in this case, the double bind of unhappiness with or without the widow. Anagnosti himself claims that despite his good life, he too would want to commit suicide in the face of so many troubles.
The narrator also contemplates aging and women, particularly their anguish over transforming from temptresses to grotesque crones. When confronted by Hortense, he knows that she wants to marry Zorba, a dream that none of her other lovers granted her when she was in her prime. The narrator compares Hortense to an older serving woman of his, a pathetic figure who also dreamed about marriage.
Later on, the narrator encounters and follows an older man and his family to the convent. The man tells the narrator how he was about to enter the monastery himself, but was derailed by the older woman with him, who is no longer beautiful — again emphasizing the loss of a woman’s beauty with age.
At the convent, the narrator discusses eternity with the mother superior and thinks about how he has given himself over to the belief of eternity, just as he had to “love” and “God” until he stopped believing in those concepts. He wishes his fixation on “Buddha” to be different, to truly break from abstract thinking and appreciate genuine experience. As before, it is nature — his swim in the sea — that soothes his turmoil.
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