Free Food for Millionaires

Casey’s affair with Hugh reflects the theme of Giving in to Compulsions Despite Consequences, serving as a physical manifestation of her desire for class mobility, including the luxury it brings. Hugh has been pursuing Casey for a long stretch of time, but it is not entirely clear why she finally has sex with him. Casey is pragmatic about the situation, concluding that “he did not love her and she did not love him. But Casey liked the way he moved” (457). The encounter represents another example of Casey’s conflict between responsibility and self-interest. To an extent, she wants to pursue her own pleasure with no regard for consequences or morality, a privilege those in power seem to enjoy; however, she is also haunted by an awareness of how her actions would hurt Unu. She finds herself sensing all her relationships with men, Jay, Unu, and Hugh, converging: It is “like being in bed with all three of them” (459). Casey conflates the various men because none of them have lived up to the idealized relationship she dreams of. Instead, all of them have forced her to make compromises and concessions in various ways.

The consequences of Casey’s compulsive behavior are swift, yielding an outcome with many similarities to Casey’s earlier circumstances in the novel; the effect is in line with Lee’s portrayal of growth as continuous and messy, a layered and circular process. Casey confesses her transgression to Unu quite quickly, and Unu forces her to move out immediately. Once again, Casey finds herself abruptly wandering the streets of New York with nowhere to go. This episode marks a moment of the protagonist coming full circle: Just like when her father disowned her, four years later, Casey is back in a similar situation. Casey has changed and grown a great deal over the course of those four years, but she still has not reconciled some fundamental conflicts in her nature and value. While Lee draws on the bildungsroman genre, she also modernizes it by resisting the closure that often marks earlier novels; Casey never arrives at conclusive marks of adulthood, and she continues to wrestle with many of the same problems throughout the entire text.

Casey’s progression to maturity is highlighted in her reaction when her mother, Leah, confides to her daughter that Charles raped her. Casey feels empathy and even pity for Leah, recognizing how Leah’s ignorance and innocence have left her vulnerable. The positions between mother and daughter become inverted as Casey comforts her mother, explaining that “it’s not your fault. I’m not mad at you. I’m not. I don’t think less of you” (516). Casey may never receive the forgiveness and unconditional love that she craves from her parents. However, she has matured to the point that she is able to offer it to them. Casey also advises Leah not to tell Joseph the truth about what happened. Leah’s plotline is left somewhat open-ended, and it is not entirely clear whether Leah will continue to blame herself for what happened.

Ella also demonstrates a deep ability to show empathy and care when Unu comes to her after reaching his lowest point. As a powerful figure within the theme of Tension Alongside Class Mobility, Ella continues to demonstrate how to diffuse that tension through compassion. After his eviction from his apartment, with nowhere else to turn, Unu comes to Ella looking for a temporary place to stay. Ella responds with an assessment that rejects key assumptions within the social hierarchy that the characters have fought to climb throughout the novel. Namely, Ella assures him that “there are no winners or losers, Unu […] that’s just bullshit” (529). Ella treats Unu very much like how she treated Casey years earlier when Casey admitted to having nowhere to go, and Ella unhesitatingly took her in. Ella’s soft and demure exterior belies her inner strength and integrity, and her empathy for others allows her to both find true happiness and set others on the path toward happiness as well.

The novel’s conclusion hints at a possible reconciliation between Unu and Casey: Unu “kissed her. He pulled away first” (559), implying that Casey welcomed the kiss. Nonetheless, the ending is highly ambiguous: The more traditional ending to a bildungsroman novel would involve marriage and a well-defined and lucrative career path for Casey. However, the world of 1990s New York is complex and dynamic, and this setting, paired with Casey’s identity as a Korean American, mean that she may never achieve the kind of stability and coherent identity depicted in the novels she reads. Casey continues to feel shame at the end of the novel, telling Unu that “my life has become stupid” (559), but Unu reassures her that it is never too late to start over. This break from tradition, in a literary sense, speaks to the theme of Creativity and the Value of Beauty, further prompting readers to reframe how they conceive of creativity and to reconsider what they consider beautiful, much as the characters have done and will continue to do.

Despite its ambiguity, the novel’s conclusion is ultimately a hopeful and generative one. The presence of Irene, a young child, hints at growth and life moving forward; Unu and Casey whimsically begin to draw images with some of Irene’s chalk. The creative act contrasts with the labor of capitalism foregrounded in most of the plot and suggests that Unu and Casey may be coming closer to being free to follow their true desires. They draw images of flowers and a tree, evoking nature and the idea of fertility and cyclical regrowth. While Unu and Casey may not know what their futures hold, the implication is that there is still plenty of hope and possibility.