key quotes Flashcards
(51 cards)
‘The thrill of it was astonishing. i dont mean the simple thrill of the trespass, I mean the thrill of the house itself’
Chapter 1 (START)
‘i worked my fingers around one of the acorns and tried to prise it from its setting’
‘i got my penknife out and dug at it’
chapter 1 (start) page 3
ivy had spread, then patchily died
Chapter 1 (Beginning) page 5
faraday describes decay of hundreds
‘His fingers felt queer against mine, rough as a crocodile in soft spots, oddly smooth in others’
Chapter 1, Beginning of chapter 1
‘i wanted to possess a peice of it’
chapter 1, Beginning, page 1
‘I was like a man, i suppose, wanting a lock of hair from the head of a girl he had suddenly and blindingly become enamoured of’
Chapter 1 (beginning) page 1
raference to ‘rape of the lock’ by alexander pope
‘The acorn was put on fire. I found the blackened nub of it, along the clinker, the next day. That must have been the last grand year for hundreds hall’
Chapter 1, beggining, page 4
symbolic of the decline of the countryside house, and the damge he will inflict on it later
‘he was handsome; taller than me’
Chapter 1, beginning
compares himself to roderick, underscores fragility of masculinity and self perspective from the onset
‘Oh, doctor faraday, i keep thinking about how he was when he came back from hospital!”
Chapter 4 (MIDDLE) pg 117
‘One of our maids! i like that’
Chapter 1, beginning, pg 6
DECLINE OF UPPER MIDDLE CLASS
‘i’d regularly heard her be refered to locally as ‘rather hearty’, a ‘natural spinster’, a ‘clever girl’- in other words she was noticeably plan, over tall for a woman, with thickish ankles’
Chapter 1, beginning, page 6
Masculine attitudes towards women, corruption of faraday.
‘She had the worst dress sense of any woman i ever knew. She was wearing boyish flat sandals and a badly fitting pale summer dress, not at all flattering to her wide hips and large bosom.’
Chapter 1, beginning, page 9
‘only he mouth, i thought, was good: suprisingly large, well shaped, and mobile’
chapter 1, beginning, page 9
‘I had probably seen her before, if only to give her the school vaccination’
chapter 1, beginning, page 10
dyptheria vaccine, labour gov context, NHS- increase in social equality
‘she was an umememorable sort of girl.’
chapter 1, beginning, page 10
faraday about Betty, show’s his corruprtive inner thoughts penetrate to young girl. creates uncertainty of narrator from outset.
‘Her cheeks were pale, only darkening slightly in a blsush of self consciousness when i put up her nightdress to examine her stomach, exposing her dingy flannel knickers’
Chapter 1, beginning, page 10
uncomfortable element of transgression, liminal boundry between proffessionality and breaking boundaries. utilises hois position as doctor to fufll his darker subconscious motives.
‘i dont come cheap, you know’ ‘the mention of money frightened her’
Chapter 1, beginning, page 11
tries to elevate himself above her class, sense of class competition. manipulates her disfortunate background to give her a sense of unnease.
‘you can never tell with
country girls, they are either hard as nails, wringing out chickens necks and so on; or going off into fits’
Chapter 1, closer to middle, pg 15
generalisation of class, sets undertone of caroline’s privilege
‘that ‘faraday’ grated on me somewhat, given he was twenty-four, and i was almost fourty’
Chapter 1, middle, page 17
class jealousy, wishes for the privilidge to be informal like roderick
‘I turned to caroline and roderick, expecting some embarassment or even some sort of apology; but they lead me past the damage as if quite unbothered by it’
Chapter 1, middle, page 18
‘yet somehow, the essential loveliness of the room stood out, like the handsome bones behind a ravaged face’
Chapter 1, middle, page 19
personifies house, symbolic of his presence becoming the racaged face behind the house.
‘When i was a child sunday’s meant being dressed in one’s finest’
chapter 1, middle, page 20
decline of upper class
‘A figure less like a dustmans i thought, it would have been hard to imagine, for she looked perfectly well groomed
‘she was a few years over 50, but her figure was still good’
‘or the fit od her dress, or the movement of her slender hips inside it’
Chapter 1, middle, page 20
notes appearance of mrs ayres, masculine ideals.
Imagines her body beneath clothes, shows desire to transgress family.
‘we had an army unit bittled with us for part of it, you know. they left odd things about the park, barbed wire, sheets of iron: they have already started rusting away’
chapter 1, middle, pg 22
house requisitioned during ww1
