The Turmoil · Chapter
Chapter XVIII explained
Sheridan finds and reads Bibbs's philosophical scribblings comparing the lives of wealthy businessmen to roosters, dismisses them as foolish, and later discovers Roscoe drunk in his office.
What happens
Sheridan finds and reads Bibbs's philosophical scribblings comparing the lives of wealthy businessmen to roosters, dismisses them as foolish, and later discovers Roscoe drunk in his office. He helps Roscoe home and hears Bibbs singing cheerfully, which deepens his sense of loss and frustration.
Themes in this chapter
Class and Social Mobility
Bibbs's manuscript contrasts the lives of wealthy businessmen (Midas) with a rooster, questioning the value of accumulation and class status.
Family and Legacy
Sheridan grieves for Jim and worries about the future of his business empire, now dependent on Roscoe, who is revealed to be drinking heavily.
Characters to notice
- James Sheridan
Finds Bibbs's manuscript, reads it, dismisses it as foolish, then discovers Roscoe drunk and helps him home.
- Bibbs Sheridan
His scribbled notes are found and read by his father; later heard singing cheerfully.
- Roscoe Sheridan
Found drunk in his office by his father, who helps him home.
Key passages
“What does the rooster lack? He has food and shelter; he is warm in winter; his wives raise not one fine family for him, but dozens. He has a clear sky over him; he breathes sweet air; he walks in his April orchard under a roof of flowers. He must die, violently perhaps, but quickly. Is Midas's cancer a better way?”
Bibbs argues that a rooster enjoys all the essentials of life—food, shelter, family, and nature—and questions whether a wealthy man's painful death is any better.
Bibbs's philosophical comparison between the life of a rooster and that of a wealthy businessman, critiquing materialism.
“Midas has had the excitement of accumulating what he has grubbed, and that has been his life and his love and his god. He cannot take that god with him when he dies.”
The only thing a wealthy man has that a rooster lacks is the thrill of accumulation, but it is a false god that cannot be taken beyond death.
Bibbs's critique of materialism and the futility of wealth as an ultimate goal.