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For there is a spot the size of a shilling at the back of the head which one can never see for oneself.
I hold a stalk in my hand. I am the stalk. My roots go down to the depths of the world, through earth dry with brick, and damp earth, through veins of lead and silver. I am all fibre. All tremors shake me, and the weight of the earth is pressed to my ribs. Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing.
Now I smell geraniums; I smell earth mould. I dance. I ripple. I am thrown over you like a net of light. I lie quivering flung over you.”
“But when we sit together, close,” said Bernard, “we melt into each other with phrases. We are edged with mist. We make an unsubstantial territory.”
They have no meaning for her. She has no answer for them. She has no body as the others have.
Confrms Rhodas lack of belonging and identity
I am not afraid of heat, nor of the frozen winter.
the chorus beginning.”
The chorus of their lives - all singing mellifluously together. They are yet in the first stags of life, discovering their very own fears, passions, etc
not yet formed into one whole. The birds, whose breasts were specked canary and rose, now sang a strain or two together, wildly, like skaters rollicking arm-in-arm, and were suddenly silent, breaking asunder.
Parallel to the 6 protagonists not yet fully synchronised
But here I am nobody. I have no face. This great company, all dressed in brown serge, has robbed me of my identity.
Further confirms lack of identity; has solidified now that she is a young adult.
He is remote from us all in a pagan universe.
Percival is always descdibed as somewhat otherworldly and ethereal -everyone admires him deeply
‘The lake of my mind, unbroken by oars, heaves placidly and soon sinks into an oily somnolence.’ That will be useful.”
Collects phrases means comfort for him
His magnificence is that of some mediaeval commander. A wake of light seems to lie on the grass behind him. Look at us trooping after him, his faithful servants, to be shot like sheep, for he will certainly attempt some forlorn enterprise and die in battle.
Again highlights Percivals role in the hierarchy: he is of superiour rank
He feels bored; I too feel bored.
Percival has strong influence on all the other characters
Yet it is Percival I need; for it is Percival who inspires poetry.”
Jinny dances. Jinny always dances in the hall on the ugly, the encaustic tiles; she turns cartwheels in the playground; she picks some flower forbiddenly, and sticks it behind her ear so that Miss Perry’s dark eyes smoulder with admiration, for Jinny, not me.
Jinny carries a youthful charming engery making her attractive to everyone she meets
“That is my face,” said Rhoda, “in the looking-glass behind Susan’s shoulder—that face is my face. But I will duck behind her to hide it, for I am not here. I have no face. Other people have faces; Susan and Jinny have faces; they are here. Their world is the real world.
Rhoda struggles to remain attached to the physical world
They laugh really; they get angry really; while I have to look first and do what other people do when they have done it.
Needs to observe other peoples behaviour before trusting her own opinions - is not stable in her identity and role in the world
Month by month things are losing their hardness; even my body now lets the light through; my spine is soft like wax near the flame of the candle. I dream; I dream.”
My blood must be bright red, whipped up, slapping against my ribs. My soles tingle, as if wire rings opened and shut in my feet. I see every blade of grass very clear.
Alert and present - youthful
everything dances—the net, the grass; your faces leap like butterflies; the trees seem to jump up and down. There is nothing staid, nothing settled, in this universe. All is rippling, all is dancing; all is quickness and triumph.
But now he is young. Not a thread, not a sheet of paper lies between him and the sun, between him and the rain, between him and the moon as he lies naked, tumbled, hot, on his bed.
But they would forgive him; for he would tell them a story.”
Bernard is eloquent and persuasive through language/phrases
Here is another day, here is another day, I cry, as my feet touch the floor. It may be a bruised day, an imperfect day. I am often scolded. I am often in disgrace for idleness, for laughing; but even as Miss Matthews grumbles at my feather-headed carelessness,
But I shall not let myself be attached to one person only. I do not want to be fixed, to be pinioned. I tremble, I quiver, like the leaf in the hedge, as I sit dangling my feet, on the edge of the bed, with a new day to break open.
“There are hours and hours,” said Rhoda, “before I can put out the light and lie suspended on my bed above the world,
Sits in stark contrast to Jinnys desire to spend a new, fresh day - Rhoda can't wait for the day to be over.
