How we cite our quotes: (Part.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I have, I hope and I believe, kept my gift pure. This means, among other things, that I have never been a successful writer. I have never tried to please at the expense of truth. I have known, for long periods, the torture of a life without self-expression. This most potent and sacred command which can be laid upon any artist is the command: wait. Art has its martyrs, not least those who have preserved their silence. (Bradley Pearson's Foreword: par. 2)
We readers are told early on in The Black Prince that Bradley Pearson has never been a particularly successful writer. What do you make of this, Shmoopers? Is Bradley trying to disguise his latent jealousy by offering idealistic excuses for his lack of success, or is he just telling it like it is?
Quote #2
It has been suggested, especially in the light of more recent events, that I envied Arnold's success as a writer. I would like at once and categorically to deny this. I sometimes envied his freedom to write at a time when I was tied to my desk. But I did not in general feel envy of Arnold Baffin for one very simple reason: it seemed to me that he achieved success at the expense of merit. (1.2.2)
Bradley Pearson isn't the first literary character to make an argument like this one—Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre says something very similar when she insists that she was never jealous of the woman who did her best to woo Edward Rochester, the glowering love of Jane's life. Do you buy what Bradley is saying here, or is this another instance of his unreliable narration?
Quote #3
I will not go so far as to say that Arnold and I were obsessed with each other. But we were certainly of abiding mutual interest. I felt that the Baffins needed me. I felt, in relation to them, like a tutelary deity. Arnold was always grateful, even devoted, though there is no doubt that he feared my criticisms. He had perhaps, as he increasingly embraced literary mediocrity, a very similar critic inside his own breast. (1.2.3)
At some point as you read The Black Prince—and Shmoop is willing to bet that you reach this point pretty early on—you've got to wonder if all of Bradley Pearson's critical comments about Arnold Baffin are actually the products of Bradley's keen artistic insight (as he no doubt believes they are), or if they are really just "the forgeries of jealousy" (to quote Act 2: Scene 1 of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream).