How we cite our quotes: (Part.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Then she got terribly angry and lost control and screamed at me, and I hate that. I sort of pushed her to stop her screaming and she clawed my face, see, she made quite a mark on me, God, it still hurts. I felt quite frightened and I just hit her to make her stop. I can't stand screaming and noise and anger, and they are frightening. She was yelling like a fury and saying awful things about my work and I just hit her with my hand to stop the hysterics, but she went on coming at me and coming at me, and then I picked up the poker from the fireplace just to hold it between us as a barrier, and just at that moment she jerked her head, she was dancing round me like a wild animal, and she jerked her head down and met the poker with a most ghastly crack…. (1.3.60)
Although Bradley Pearson does it more than anyone else, he isn't the only man in The Black Prince who uses animal imagery to describe the women in his life. In passages like this one, women like Rachel Baffin become dehumanized—depicted more as animals, demons, or mythical monsters than as sympathetic human beings.
Quote #5
He has taken my whole life from me. He has spoilt the world. I am as clever as he is. He has just blocked me off from everything. I can't work, I can't think, I can't be, because of him. His stuff crawls over everything, he takes away all my things and turns them into his things. I've never been myself or lived my own life at all. I've always been afraid of him, that's what it comes to. All men despise all women really. All women fear all men really. Men are physically stronger, that's what it comes to, that what's behind it all [sic]. Of course they're bullies, they can end any argument. (1.3.100)
Although Bradley Pearson himself doesn't put much stock in the things that Rachel Baffin is saying here, the novel itself suggests that women like Rachel do face some unique difficulties, particularly when they're encouraged to define themselves entirely as their husbands' wives rather than as independent people with personalities and ambitions of their own.
Quote #6
It's sort of shock and relief, you know. I'm probably being unfair to Rachel, and it isn't as bad as it sounds, in fact it isn't bad at all. One must make allowances. At the age she's reached women always become a little bit odd. It passes, I imagine. I suppose they sort of review their lives. There must be a sense of loss, a feeling of the final parting with youth. A tendency to be hysterical isn't too uncommon, I suppose. (1.3.166)
In Bradley Pearson's narrative, Bradley himself isn't the only one who thinks of women—and middle-aged women in particular—as moody, irrational beings who are prone to fits of hysteria. There are moments when Arnold Baffin's opinion of his wife, Rachel, is just as poor as Bradley's view of her.