Heat induces languor and stillness—but also debauchery and frenzy
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskIn art, as in life, temperatures like those that have been scorching Europe and America provoke contradictory reactions, alike only in being as extreme as the weather. Heat liberates and suffocates. It opens up new worlds, ripe with feverish possibilities, or shrinks the universe to a pool or a patch of shade. People change states, their emotions rising with the warm air. Like crushed ice in a mint julep, boundaries dissolve.
The borders between the generations can evaporate, too, as unsupervised children roam about and get embroiled in grown-up business, sometimes combustibly. In “To Kill a Mockingbird”, on Alabama days so hot that “stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning” and “ladies bathed before noon”, Scout and Jem hang around the courthouse or try to make Boo Radley come out. Life stands still, then speeds up, lassitude, excitement and catastrophe succeeding one another like readings on a thermometer.
Heat warps perceptions along with morals, clouding visions or clarifying them. Secrets bubble into the open, fizzed along by ill-advised boozing. “Liquor goes fast in hot weather,” Stanley sneers at poor, clammy Blanche in “A Streetcar Named Desire”. In “The Great Gatsby”, on a day too hot to move, Daisy, Tom, Nick and Gatsby take a fateful jaunt into New York and drink cocktails in a hotel. Sweat races down backs, tempers fray, truths are told, feelings run high and out of control.
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