How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"Anything's possible in Human Nature," Chacko said in his Reading Aloud voice. Talking to the darkness now, suddenly insensitive to his little fountain-haired niece. "Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite joy."
Of the four things that were Possible in Human Nature, Rahel thought that Infinnate Joy sounded the saddest. Perhaps because of the way Chacko said it.
Infinnate Joy. With a church sound to it. Like a sad fish with fins all over. (4.310-312)
Here we see the difference between an adult's and a child's version of reality. Chacko is sort of rambling just to answer Rahel's questions so she'll stop pestering him – we even detect a hint of sarcasm in his voice. In Rahel's mind, though, these random words might as well be written in stone. While Chacko says anything is possible, Rahel deems the four things he names as the only things that are possible because they are the only things he mentions.
This quote is a great example of how the novel uses capitalized words to deem certain ideas or names as particularly significant in Estha and Rahel's minds. The fact that "infinite" is misspelled also heightens the mismatch between the adult's pronouncement and the child's understanding.
Quote #8
Ammu touched her daughter gently. On her shoulder. And her touch meant Shhhh....Rahel looked around her and saw she was in a Play. But she had only a small part.
She was just the landscape. A flower perhaps. Or a tree.
A face in the crowd. A Townspeople. (8.48-50)
This moment turns the way Rahel understands her role at home upside-down. All of a sudden, things are totally different than they usually are. Rahel's realization that they're in a "play" shows us that everyone here is playing a part to some extent – they aren't being themselves. Sophie Mol's arrival topples over Rahel's reality; she goes from being one of the leads to being the "nobody" in the background.
Quote #9
[Ammu] was surprised at the extent of her daughter's physical ease with him. Surprised that her child seemed to have a sub-world that excluded her entirely. (8.85)
Here, Ammu sees that Rahel's world is different from the version she had imagined. It seems that up until now, Ammu had never really imagined that there were parts of Rahel's life that she didn't know about and that she even now can't access.