Crome Yellow is full of scenes in which characters discuss abstract ideas or schemes, sometimes agreeing and sometimes disagreeing. In this sense, it is a prototypical “novel of ideas,” or a novel in which characters give speeches in the form of monologues or dialogues in order to incorporate real-world debates into the fictional narrative. The novel of ideas is also sometimes designed to explore the process of argumentation itself, which Huxley would do in a later social satire, Point Counter Point (1928). In Crome Yellow, the concepts with which the characters engage are significant largely because they ultimately prove untenable or unappealing: In other words, what the novel aims to examine is what happens when even the most disciplined thinker cannot put their passionately held ideas into practice.

Denis is the first character to articulate the mismatch between ideas and actualities. During an early conversation with Anne, he reflects on the challenges he has faced when trying to put theories into practice: “In the world of ideas everything was clear; in life all was obscure, embroiled” (18). Denis sees this gulf as the root of all his unhappiness, saying that in such a world it makes sense that everyone is “miserable, horribly unhappy” (18).