Poor Things

by Alasdair Gray

gazed at Baxter with awe, admiration and a kind of pity.

It is hard not to pity those whose powers separate them from all the rest of us, unless (of course) they are ruler...

“I have done nothing wonderfull,” he said gloomily, putting the other rabbit down. “In fact I’ve done something rather shabby.

Godwin feels a bit guilty about what he's done to the rabbits

“But Baxter, what can your hands not do if they can do this?” “O, I could replace the diseased hearts of the rich with the healthy hearts of poorer folk, and make a lot of money. But I have all the money I need and it would be unkind to lead millionaires into such temptation.”

Godwin doesnt want to use his skills to contribute to the higher class, even though it would make him more rich

“If medical practitioners wanted to save lives,” said Baxter, “instead of making money out of them, they would unite to prevent diseases, not work separately to cure them.

Godwin explains how for most peple its not about saving lives, but about how to make money.

plutocracy.

Governed by wealth

“For a private reason I refuse to disclose to you, McCandless. I know this is not the frank answer of a friend, but I now see you were never my friend, but tolerated the company of a harmless, insignificant madman because other well-dressed students would not tolerate yours.

I will continue to seek affection by following a lonelier road.”

“I was daft to say these things. I promise I did not mean to hurt you.” “I disagree. You did mean to hurt me, and have done so more than you intended. Good-bye.”

A cold grue went through me—I

He's relized Godwin has possibly been experimented on.

THEN CAME THE LONELIEST MONTHS I have known.

mercenary,

Money seeking

And of course, I was hoping to meet him again.

With a pang of envy I said, “You look happy, Baxter.”

Nobody had looked at me like that before.

She also cast several astonished but happy little glances at my fascinated face,

“Hell low Miss terr Candle,” she said, “new wee man with carrot tea red hair, inter rested face, blue neck tie, crump pled coat waist coat trou sirs made of brown. Cord. Dew. Ray?”

Our first description of what our main character looks like

Only idiots and infants talk like that, are capable of such radiant happiness, such frank glee and friendship on meeting someone new. It is dreadful to see these things in a lovely young woman.

His voice must have had hypnotic qualities for I suddenly knew what he meant and believed him.

“You are the only one in the world I can talk to about this.”

“I was called to examine the body you know as Bella soon after our quarrel a year ago.

The argument took place roughly a year ago--establishes a timeline.

An unusually deliberate suicide then, and committed by someone who wished to be forgotten.

Bella "before"

“Either she was carrying the child of a husband she hated or the child of a lover she had preferred to her husband, a lover who abandoned her.”

You will know why if you see Bella asleep. Bella’s face in repose is that of the ardent, wise, sorrowful woman who lay before me on the mortuary slab. I knew nothing about the life she had abandoned, except that she hated it so much that she had chosen not to be, and forever!

For in this Christian nation suicide is treated as lunacy or crime.

Attempted Suicide could be charged as a crime

My childhood hopes, and boyhood dreams, my education and adult researches had prepared me for this moment.

For years I had been planning to take a discarded body and discarded brain from our social midden heap and unite them in a new life. I now did so, hence Bella.”

“The earliest habits we learn (and speech is one of them) must become instinct through the nerves and muscles of the whole body.

It would cast a shadow upon her life to learn she is a surgical fabrication.

Her response showed that her body was recalling carnal sensations from its earlier life, and the sensations excited her brain into new thoughts and word forms.

“I will not let people treat her as an oddity.

You think you are about to possess what men have hopelessly yearned for throughout the ages: the soul of an innocent, trusting, dependent child inside the opulent body of a radiantly lovely woman.

Whether Bella Baxter be your orphaned niece or twice orphaned fabrication, I am more truly akin to her than you can ever be, and I will preserve her honour to the last drop of blood in my veins as sure as there is a God in Heaven, Baxter!—a

It still seems weird to recall that after unexpectedly meeting my only friend, future wife and first decanter of port I raved in the language of novels I knew to be trash, and only read to relax my brain before sleeping.

I am an ugly fellow but have you known me do an ugly thing?”

I formed no special attachment to those who fostered me, perhaps because there were so many of them.

and I wanted it to be me. Her expression excited me more than her lovely body in a flowing violet gown, because I thought I knew all about bodies. Her expression excited me more than her lovely free, for I had seen women with such faces in the park—when they walked toward me their faces froze, grew pale or bright pink and tried not to see me at all. Ophelia could look at me with loving wonder because she saw the inner man I would become—the kindest, greatest doctor in the world who would save her life and the life of millions.

I sat feeling more of a monster than he was.

But the patients never see me, so that was no way to win the admiring smile of an Ophelia.

Your effect on Bella does not worry me. Her effect on you does, at present.”

FIFTEEN MONTHS PASSED BEFORE I MET HER again and they were unexpectedly happy.

I mostly thought of Bella during unoccupied moments, especially in the half hour before going to bed and falling asleep.

I did not dream of her because I never dream at all, but when we next met I believed for almost a minute that I was in bed dreaming although I was wide awake in a public park.

and I moved among them staring at the ground as I usually do in crowds.

“Candle,

Bella calls the main character "Candle"

but if she seemed a glorious dream Baxter loomed beside her like a nightmare.

“He is still my little Candle, God!

Bella calls Godwin "God"

But men seem better at acting daft when they’re miserable.”

I want fun, not babies. I only do more with women, if I like the look of them, but a lot of women are shy.

Bisexual QUEEN

I am a collector of childhoods since that collision destroyed all memory of my own.”