How we cite our quotes: (Part.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Priscilla has no zeal and talents and made no efforts. She was spoilt by my mother whom she resembled. I think women, perhaps unconsciously, convey to female children a deep sense of their own discontent. My mother, though not too unhappily married, had a continued grudge against the world. (1.6.2)
What would a feminist reinterpretation of these observations look like? As Bradley Pearson realizes later in the novel, married women in his day and age sometimes have good reason to feel discontented with their lots in life. Why might such women choose to communicate such feelings to their daughters, or communicate them unconsciously, without making an active choice?
Quote #8
Stop, please. I'm not doing you any good by listening to your complaints. You're in a thoroughly nervous silly state. Women of your age often are. You're simply not rational, Priscilla. I daresay Roger has been tiresome, he's a very selfish man, but you'll just have to forgive him. Women just have to put up with selfish men, it's their lot. You can't leave him, there isn't anywhere else for you to go. (1.7.49)
Ugh. Talk about giving some loving sibling advice. Bradley Pearson certainly isn't about to win any awards for Most Understanding Brother anytime soon. Although let's face it: most of the characters in this novel fail to understand each other on any real level.
Quote #9
No one had thought to pull the curtains back and the room was still twilit. There was a horrible smell. I patted the heaving mass of blankets. Only a little of her hair was visible, with a dirty line of grey at the roots of the gold. Her hair was dry and brittle, more like some synthetic fibre than like human hair. I felt disgust and helpless pity and a prowling desire to vomit. I sat for a time patting her with the awkward ineffectual gesture of a small child trying to pat an animal. (1.7.111)
This isn't the first time that Bradley Pearson's descriptions of the middle-aged women in his life dehumanizes those women, and it won't be the last. Although it's hard to say if all of Francis Marloe's opinions of Bradley are right, it certainly seems that there's something to it when he suggests that Bradley hates and fears women, deep down.