Chip Lambert

Character Analysis

Chip Lambert wants to the hippest hipster that ever lived. If you were to break down his desired personality into a math equation, it would be: one part literary intellectual + one part creative genius – two parts innocent Midwestern kid.

But here's the thing—those numbers don't add up.

Identity (1): The Literary Intellectual

As Chip gets older, he becomes increasingly attracted to left-wing politics as a reaction to Alfred's stringent conservatism. There were signs, even early on, that this development wasn't as genuine as Chip would like us to believe—he dated an ardent feminist for over a decade solely out of "male guilt" (2.192), for instance. But you've got to give Chip some credit: the dude commits.

Chip felt at home at when he became a professor, but that too proves to be short-lived. Chip is driven by Alfred's "injunction to do work that was 'useful' to society" (2.278), even though he doesn't realize it at first. His affair with his student, Melissa—not to mention his experience with Mexican A—is the final nail in the coffin. And just like that, Chip's out of a job.

R.I.P. Chip the literary intellectual, we hardly knew ye.

Identity (2): The Hipster Genius

With that, Chip moves to New York City and becomes a hipster. He trades in his tweed coat for a leather jacket and a pair of earrings, and he sells his rare book collection in order to fund his starving artist lifestyle. He rubs elbows with the rich and the famous and gets a "foretaste of success a hundred times sweeter than tenure" (2.633). Foretaste, to be clear, is not the same thing as foreshadowing. Not in Chip's case, anyway.

Meanwhile, the contradictions are piling up. Chip feels out of place and "insufficiently transgressive" (2.637) among his off-beat East Coast colleagues. This only makes him work harder on his screenplay, but the truth is that his script is terrible. It's a sad attempt for him to recast himself as the victim in the whole Melissa scandal and, worse than that, it's just boring. Like, even Chip can't convince himself that he did a good job.

Identity (3): The Midwestern Boy

Chip goes through more identities than pairs of underwear, ultimately leaving him with nothing but his naked self. His experiences in Lithuania certainly humble him—he experiences life and death more intimately in those few months than he ever has before. But, more than that, it's his relationship with Alfred that sparks a change. Chip realizes that the man who he has spent his life hating loves him more than anyone else in the world. How is one supposed to deal with something like that?

The Chip we see in the final chapter is very different from the one we're first introduced to. Chip has chosen a conventional path, now living in the Midwest with his new wife and children. That doesn't mean there aren't still echoes of his past life, however: He lives in urban Chicago and is still hammering away at that screenplay. But that's actually a good thing. Chip has finally managed to achieve balance between the different aspects to his personality, even if that script of his never sees the light of day.