Tropic of Cancer

Tropic of Cancer Glossary

"avec des choses inouies"

French for "with extraordinary things"

creosote

a possible reference to wood creosote, a yellowish liquid used as a disinfectant

discomfited

disconcerted

fronds

the leaves of cycads, palms, or similarly shaped plants

Gare St. Lazare

one of the principal train stations of Paris (along with Gare d'Austerlitz, Gare du Nord, Gare de l'Est, and Gare Montparnasse)

Gauguin

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), a French painter of the Post-Impressionist school

gizzard

an organ in the digestive tract of birds, earthworms, reptiles, and certain fish

Le Havre

an important port city in Brittany, in the northwest of France on the Atlantic coast

Mallarme

Stephane Mallarme (1842-1898), a French poet

Montparnasse

a neighborhood of Paris, today dominated by business, but in Miller's time swamped with expats, artists, intellectuals, and bohemians

omphalos

Greek for "navel"

paddock

a fenced area, usually used to graze horses

pneumatique

French for "tire" or "tyre"

Rabelais

Francois Rabelais (1494-1553), a French writer considered one of the founders of the novel and renowned for his bawdy humor

Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), a French poet and part of the so-called decadent movement

Rodin

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), a French sculptor

Sargasso Sea

a region of the North Atlantic Ocean bordered on the west by the Gulf Stream

Strindberg

August Strindberg (1849-1912), a Swedish playwright and one of the fathers of the modern theater

suppository

a system for delivering drugs through the urethra, the vagina, or the rectum

syphilis

a venereal disease quite common in the 1930s

the clap

slang for gonorrhea

trollop

a vulgar woman, or a woman of disrepute

Villa Borghese

Miller's home at the outset of the novel, and a likely reference to the Villa Seurat in Paris, where Miller did indeed live for some time