# XIII explained — Point Counter Point

> Chapter companion for Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley.

## What happens

Walter, having resolved to break with Lucy and recommit to Marjorie, goes to work feeling calm and determined. At the office, Burlap is genial but insincere, discussing Rimbaud's belief in Life. Meanwhile, Burlap's own emotional history with his deceased wife Susan is revealed as self-indulgent and manipulative. Walter returns home to find Marjorie, who detects Lucy's perfume and confronts him; he leaves in anger and goes to Lucy, insisting she accompany him out.

## Themes in this chapter

### Love and Obsession

Walter's obsessive desire for Lucy is contrasted with his duty to Marjorie; Burlap's self-induced love for Susan is revealed as a phantom obsession.

### Modern Alienation and Despair

Walter's anguish over thwarted desire is described as unavowable and ludicrous, highlighting the alienation of modern emotional experience.

### Religion and Morality

Burlap's use of New Testament language and his self-perception as a Christ-like figure underscore the theme of religious hypocrisy and moral self-deception.

## Character check-ins

### Walter Bidlake

Resolves to end his affair with Lucy and be faithful to Marjorie, but is confronted by Marjorie's detection of Lucy's perfume and leaves to find Lucy.

### Marjorie Carling

Sews at home, detects Lucy's perfume on Walter, and angrily confronts him, leading to his departure.

### Dennis Burlap

In a genial mood at the office, discusses Rimbaud's belief in Life with Walter; his past relationship with Susan is revealed as self-centered and emotionally manipulative.

### Lucy Tantamount

Walter goes to her after leaving Marjorie; she agrees to go out with him despite a prior dinner engagement.

### Ethel Cobbett

Sympathizes with Burlap's grief over Susan and accepts a secretarial job on the Literary World offered by him.

## Key lines

> He had loved, not Susan, but the mental image of Susan and the idea of love, fixedly concentrated on, in the best Jesuitical manner, until they became hallucinatingly real.

Burlap's love was directed at an idealized mental construct of Susan, not the real person, cultivated through intense focus until it felt real.

_Reveals Burlap's self-deception and the artificial nature of his emotions._

> The anguish of thwarted desire, for example. That was the anguish which Walter carried with him into the street. It was pain, anger, disappointment, shame, misery, all in one. And yet the cause was unavowable, low, even ludicrous.

Walter's intense suffering from frustrated desire is painful and shameful, yet its cause—interrupted flirtation—seems trivial and laughable to others.

_Highlights the theme of modern alienation and the disparity between inner anguish and external perception._

> With Burlap he was always, in some obscure fashion, a liar and a comedian. And at the same time, all that he said, even when he was speaking his innermost convictions, became a sort of falsehood.

In Burlap's presence, Walter feels compelled to be insincere, and even his honest statements seem like lies.

_Illustrates the discomfort and inauthenticity Walter feels around Burlap._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/point_counter_point_se/chapters/xiii
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/point_counter_point_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/point_counter_point_se/chapters