48 pages • 1 hour read
Nikos KazantzakisZorba the Greek
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1946A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 25-26Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
It is the eve of May 1, the cable railway is set up, and celebratory food and drink have been provided for the village. Zorba welcomes the villagers and explains the importance of the cable railway. He tells them that the Virgin herself helped him through a midnight visit. The monks arrive as he is telling the story, crying out that there’s been a miracle. The monks speak of Zacharias setting fire to the monastery and them crying out to the Virgin for vengeance. The next morning, they found Zacharias’s body in the chapel, dead before the icon, which has a bloodstain. The monks will take the icon in a procession around the villages of Crete. Zorba mutter that they are scoundrels.
After they bless the pylons, Zorba pulls the first cord. The structure seems unsteady, and the log shoots through the air. Zorba tries again, and the next log is pulverized. Zorba says the rope isn’t right yet. The next trunk falls back on the cable, throwing sparks. The pylons collapse with the fourth trunk, and Demetrios is wounded by splinters. The villagers run away, leaving Zorba and the narrator alone with the food. They eat and Zorba talks about how when he was a soldier surrounded by the enemy, he once had a fine meal comparable to what he is having now. The narrator asks Zorba to teach him how to dance, and “gained courage” (290) feeling his feet “grow wings” through it (290). He admires Zorba’s defiance toward life laid bare through the dance.
The narrator is happy despite his failed venture. The anguish of it doesn’t touch him. The narrator goes to the village and gets a letter from his friend saying that his side has won. The narrator hurries home to imagine his friend and falls asleep. He dreams of being in Athens and seeing his friend. His friend calls to him and they make plans to meet each other. When they go to shake hands, his friend’s arm comes off. The narrator wakes up and calls to his friend, feeling a premonition. He dismisses it as he goes into the hut.
Chapter 26 Summary
The narrator is set to leave Crete. He will do as Zorba says and swallow enough books to cure himself of their vice. He assures Zorba that they will meet again, though he knows that won’t be the case. Zorba also knows that the separation will be forever, and his sadness is why he cannot play the santuri. According to Zorba, the narrator isn’t free; “the string to which [he is] tied is a little longer than other people’s sting” (293). This annoys the narrator, since it’s what he’s long been concerned about. Zorba says that the narrator is too rational. Zorba claims he’d be happier if he understood less and had more folly. Zorba screams and sings a Turkish song, which moves the narrator. Zorba tells the narrator to go to sleep, but the narrator argues that he wants to spend the last night in Zorba’s company and won’t sleep. Zorba gives an account of his father, who had his own vices but would give them up suddenly and quickly. He leaves, and the narrator doesn’t see him again. In Iraklio, the narrator receives a telegram that his friend has died of pneumonia.
Five years pass and the narrator occasionally hears from Zorba. Zorba writes about not being able to do business with monks and leaving Hortense’s parrot with one of them. Another card reveals Zorba now works in an oil mine in Romania. Two years after that, the narrator learns Zorba is in Serbia, where he has married a younger woman who is now pregnant with his child. During this time, the narrator is traveling through Germany, which is facing hard times. He receives a telegram from Zorba asking him to come see a green stone. While tempted to go, the narrator doesn’t and explains why to Zorba, who answers angrily and stops writing to him.
The narrator mentions Zorba to his friends and remembers his dear friend as well. He dreams of his friend once while staying in a hotel where they both stayed before. He dreams of Zorba too and has another premonition, which he ignores until he finds himself penning his experiences with Zorba. A few weeks after he finishes, a letter arrives announcing Zorba’s death. In his last moments, he was standing by the window, laughing at the mountains. He leaves the narrator his santuri.
Chapters 25-26 Analysis
The narrator’s satisfaction in the face of the cable railway’s failure demonstrates that he has tapped into Zorba’s authenticity. Despite losing so much money, the narrator enjoys the meal and Zorba’s company. His request for Zorba to teach him how to dance indicates how much closer the narrator is to Zorba’s authentic way of being. Nevertheless, there is still distance between them; the narrator cannot give up his way of being entirely and knows that his time in Crete is over, though he tells Zorba that he will try to cure himself of his vice of intellectualism by gorging on books. Years later the narrator will also resist Zorba’s invitation to come visit.
These final chapters illustrate the limits of intellectualism and rationality, as the narrator feels premonitions of both Stavridaki and Zorba’s deaths. Both losses haunt the narrator; he dreams of his friend years later, and the friend accuses the narrator of forgetting him. Feeling Zorba’s impending loss motivates the narrator to record his experience with Zorba to preserve his memory. The completed work is a synthesis of experience and spirit.
