Chapter 59: 50 States of Grey—Gerrymandering Summary

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens with an unnamed protagonist—the gerrymanderer—examining a “mangled form” that has been pressed and squeezed but is still not perfect. This form is a legislative district, distorted to serve a partisan vision. Despite being horribly distended in parts and condensed in others, the gerrymanderer insists on more modifications: shaving off one percent here, adding it there, until the shape “would answer his wish” and embody his vision fully. He commands, “We have to keep gerrymandering.”

Suddenly, a “KLAXON” sounds: a letter arrives from his fiancée, Hella, announcing she will be in Paris in nine days. The gerrymanderer is now racing against the clock. He must leave Giovanni’s room—a reference to the novel’s setting—and get out of Paris. He picks up his suitcase and stands at the door, with Giovanni in bed, gray and pale, holding a glass of cognac. The narrator instructs him to walk through the door without begging forgiveness and without letting Giovanni’s body gain permanent sway over him. He is told to tell Hella that he wants to escape this room and Paris. The text then poses a challenge: is what he really trying to escape himself? The reader is urged to “successfully burn out, through contact with your fiancée Hella, the reality of Giovanni and the memory of his touch.”

A “SIREN” blares. The abrupt departure has destroyed something in Giovanni, and he has committed a murder. Now the protagonist has exactly ten days to hold it together for Hella as Giovanni’s execution approaches. The only rules: do not confess to Hella that you love him, and do not pick up any sailors. The chapter concludes with a choice: “Either remember your Eden or forget it forever. Both require a different kind of strength.” A final line notes that it is already the delicate months from spring to midsummer.

Key Events

• The gerrymanderer obsessively adjusts a district map, seeking perfect partisan shape.
• A letter from fiancée Hella forces a countdown: nine days until her arrival.
• The gerrymanderer abandons Giovanni in Paris.
• Giovanni’s emotional devastation leads him to commit murder.
• A ten-day period follows before Giovanni’s execution.
• The protagonist must maintain a normal facade with Hella while suppressing the memory of Giovanni.

Character Development

The chapter’s protagonist (the “you” of the narrative) is an unnamed figure who conflates the roles of a political operative and a person in a love triangle. Initially, he is wholly absorbed in the technical act of gerrymandering, treating the district as a lifeless object to be tortured into shape. The arrival of Hella’s letter forces him to confront a split identity: the public self engaged with politics and the private self entangled with Giovanni. His abrupt departure triggers a tragedy, but he never fully owns his responsibility—instead, he is advised to “burn out” the memory of Giovanni. This lack of self-awareness mirrors the way gerrymandering is often treated as a soulless, technical exercise without acknowledging its human consequences.

Giovanni is portrayed as physically and emotionally fragile, gray and pale like the incomplete district. His murder is a direct consequence of the protagonist’s instrumental treatment of him—just as a distorted district leads to broken representation. Hella represents the conventional, acceptable future that the protagonist is trying to secure, but the chapter suggests that such a future is based on suppression and self-deception.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

• Gerrymandering as a Distortion of Identity: The “mangled form” of the district stands for both a political map and a fractured human relationship. The constant tweaking symbolizes how gerrymandering warps representation to serve power, much like the protagonist warps his own feelings.
• Parody as Critique: By framing gerrymandering within the tragic love story of Giovanni’s Room, Petri exposes the moral bankruptcy of political manipulation. The novel’s themes of forbidden love, societal pressure, and self-destruction map onto the corrupting influence of partisan redistricting.
• Countdown and Consequences: The ticking clocks (nine days, ten days) create urgency, suggesting that gerrymandering is a race against fairness. The murder at the end indicates that such manipulation has violent, irreversible effects—on individuals and on democracy.
• Eden vs. Reality: The final choice—“remember your Eden or forget it forever”—echoes the false promise that gerrymandering can create a perfect, protected district. In truth, it leads to a corrupted version of paradise.

Why This Chapter Matters

“50 States of Grey—Gerrymandering” is one of the most inventive chapters in Petri’s US History because it uses high literary parody to illuminate a dry, procedural topic. By weaving the plot of Baldwin’s classic novel into a satire of redistricting, Petri forces readers to see gerrymandering not as abstract map-drawing but as a human act with emotional and ethical weight. The chapter underscores that every tweak of a district line can destroy communities and break trust in governance. The tragic arc—obsession, abandonment, murder, suppressed guilt—serves as a metaphor for how politicians treat voters as tools rather than citizens. This chapter matters because it makes the mechanics of political manipulation visceral and memorable, which is the core goal of Petri’s satirical history.

Study Questions

Q1: Which literary work does Petri directly parody in this chapter, and how does that parody relate to gerrymandering?
A1: Petri parodies James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. The novel’s exploration of conflicted identity and forbidden love parallels the way gerrymandering forces districts into unnatural shapes and suppresses fair representation. The protagonist’s inability to reconcile his public and private selves mirrors the dysfunction of a manipulated electoral system.

Q2: What does the “mangled form” that the protagonist examines represent, and what does the quote “We have to keep gerrymandering” reveal about his mindset?
A2: The “mangled form” is an electoral district that has been repeatedly redrawn. The quote shows that the protagonist pursues a vision of partisan perfection without regard for the district’s integrity or the people it represents. He treats the map as an object to be squeezed and stretched endlessly, reflecting an obsession with power over fairness.

Q3: How does the chapter’s ending—the choice to remember or forget Eden—connect to the broader theme of gerrymandering?
A3: The “Eden” refers to an idealized, untainted political process that existed before manipulation. The choice to “remember” suggests that we must acknowledge the ideal of fair representation, while “forget” implies accepting corruption. The chapter argues that gerrymandering destroys the possibility of that democratic Eden, and only by remembering its loss can we fight for reform.

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