Elmer Gantry · Chapter
II explained
Elmer Gantry, known as 'Hellcat,' is a football hero at Terwillinger College in 1902, but after the season ends, he is bored by academics and longs for business or adventure.
What happens
Elmer Gantry, known as 'Hellcat,' is a football hero at Terwillinger College in 1902, but after the season ends, he is bored by academics and longs for business or adventure. He detests piety, loves drinking and profanity, and is only kept from flunking by his friend Jim Lefferts, who enjoys scholarship. Elmer dreams of becoming a lawyer without studying, finding joy only in loafing, drinking, and pursuing women.
Themes in this chapter
Hypocrisy and Corruption in Religion
Elmer's detestation of piety and admiration for drunkenness and profanity contrasts with his attendance at a religious college, highlighting hypocrisy.
Ambition and the Pursuit of Power
Elmer dreams of using his voice to hold and shake an audience, and plans to become a lawyer by charming juries rather than studying.
Characters to notice
- Elmer Gantry
Football captain and senior at Terwillinger College, bored with academics, detests piety, loves drinking and profanity, kept from flunking by Jim Lefferts.
- Jim Lefferts
Elmer's friend who enjoys scholarship and drives Elmer to study, also a capable drinker and womanizer.
Key passages
“Elmer Gantry, best known to classmates as Hellcat, had, this autumn of 1902, been football captain and led the best team Terwillinger College had known in ten years.”
In the fall of 1902, Elmer Gantry, nicknamed 'Hellcat,' was the football captain who led Terwillinger College to its best season in a decade.
Introduces Elmer's athletic success and his rebellious nickname.
“Once or twice in the class in Public Speaking, when he had repeated the splendors of other great thinkers, Dan’l Webster and Henry Ward Beecher and Chauncey M. Depew, he had known the intoxication of holding an audience with his voice as with his closed hand, holding it, shaking it, lifting it.”
In public speaking class, Elmer experienced the thrill of captivating an audience by reciting famous orators, feeling powerful control over them.
Highlights Elmer's early talent for oratory and his desire for power.