How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
The question he longed to ask was not in the letter and neither was the offer: Is it a woman, David? Bring her on home. I don't care who she is. Bring her on home and I'll help you get set up. He could not risk this question because he could not have endured the answer in the negative. An answer in the negative would have revealed what strangers we had become. (2.2.19)
How well does it seem that David's father knows him? Would an answer in the negative suggest to him that David is gay or would it only make David a mystery to him? Why does David's father rein in his desire to be friends with David on this one particular point?
Quote #8
"For a woman," she said, "I think a man is always a stranger. And there's something awful about being at the mercy of a stranger."
"But men are at the mercy of women, too. Have you never thought of that?"
"Ah!" she said, "men may be at the mercy of women – I think men like that idea, it strokes the misogynist in them. But if a particular man is ever at the mercy of a particular woman – why, he's somehow stopped being a man. And the lady, then, is more neatly trapped than ever." (2.4.45-47)
What does Hella mean that men's pretending they are at the mercy of women "strokes the misogynist in them"? If men believed that they actually had power over women, why would they enjoy pretending that they did not? In what ways are men at the mercy of women? In what ways do they enjoy saying that they are?
Quote #9
"If I stay here much longer," she said, later that same morning, as she packed her bag, "I'll forget what it's like to be a woman."
She was extremely cold, she was bitterly handsome. (2.5.100-101)
There's an incredibly telling word in this scene. David describes Hella as handsome. What does the word imply in this context? How could David not have been aware of how he saw Hella? Is David aware now?