How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph.Page)
Quote #7
Alan wondered, continually, about his own behavior. No sooner had he done something, something like hiding behind a hill of dirt by the Red Sea, when he would wonder, Who is this man who leaves the presentation tent to hide behind a hill of dirt? (XX.20.167)
Most of us have probably had a moment when we've thought, "Did I really do that?" Hey, everybody has regrets and second thoughts. But who wouldn't want to escape a hot tent in the middle of the desert for a place by the sea?
Alan's profound sense of isolation from society makes him question all of his actions ("Do I seem weird?"). We can also see him judging himself through his former, more confident eyes. The result? Alan no longer recognizes himself and has to wonder where "he" has gone.
Quote #8
People worried about our passing over into some robotic state, but we were so much like robots already, programmed and easy to manipulate. We had buttons, we had circuits, and it could all be mapped and explained, reprogrammed and calibrated. (XXII.115.190)
In his struggle to understand who he has become over the years, Alan also contemplates human identity and purpose in the face of evolving tech. It doesn't take much of a leap of imagination to see human behavior as a product of our "wiring": biology, electrical impulses—and in this case, hormones.
Humans may feel sovereign and in control, but really, are we? And are we any more miraculous or mysterious than a robot that really is only a sum of its parts?
Quote #9
Whatever she's done that has displeased you I want you to know that you are who you are because of your mother, because of her strength. She knew when to be the tugboat. She coined that term, Kit. The tugboat. She was the steady, she navigated around the dangers lurking below. (XXIII.50.202)
Alan hits on a moment of truth in his recollection of his doomed family life: he wasn't the man he ought to have been in Kit's life—and that Ruby's response to that has, in fact, shaped Kit's identity. We don't get to see Kit or Ruby on their own terms in this work, so it's impossible to know how accurate Alan's assessment might be. But Eggers does give us a more complex understanding of Ruby's role in their lives in Alan's moments of drunken honesty and loneliness.