How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #7
And here we come to an unpleasant subject which it will be well to pass over as quickly as possible. There was only one thing that worried Benjamin Button; his wife had ceased to attract him.
At that time Hildegarde was a woman of thirty-five, with a son, Roscoe, fourteen years old. In the early days of their marriage Benjamin had worshipped her. But, as the years passed, her honey-coloured hair became an unexciting brown, the blue enamel of her eyes assumed the aspect of cheap crockery – moreover, and, most of all, she had become too settled in her ways, too placid, too content, too anemic in her excitements, and too sober in her taste. As a bride it been she who had "dragged" Benjamin to dances and dinners – now conditions were reversed. She went out socially with him, but without enthusiasm, devoured already by that eternal inertia which comes to live with each of us one day and stays with us to the end. (1.7.7)
Just as Benjamin’s age reflects not only his body but also his personality, so we see the same thing with Hildegarde. The reasons for Benjamin’s fading love have as much to do with her shifting disposition as with her aging body.
Quote #8
There were no troublesome memories in his childish sleep; no token came to him of his brave days at college, of the glittering years when he flustered the hearts of many girls. There were only the white, safe walls of his crib and Nana and a man who came to see him sometimes, and a great big orange ball that Nana pointed at just before his twilight bed hour and called "sun." When the sun went his eyes were sleepy – there were no dreams, no dreams to haunt him. (2.1.8)
How can we define Benjamin at the end of this story? Who is he, if he doesn’t even remember who he’s been his whole life?