How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1
HALLY. (A world-weary sigh) I know, I know! I oscillate between hope and despair for this world as well, Sam. But things will change, you wait and see. One day somebody is going to get up and give history a kick up the backside and get it going again. (393-397)
Hally claims to "oscillate between hope and despair," but we have to say that he seems to be stuck on the despair setting in this play. He doesn't seem to have much real hope for the social reformers who will get history moving again; it's more like he just wishes they were around but doesn't see any way for things to change. Maybe he sees his own personal family struggles and how nothing seems to change.
Quote #2
HALLY. [. . .] "This is it," I thought. "Like everything else in my life, here comes another fiasco." (857-859)
"Everything" in life is a fiasco? Hally's despair about his family situation seems to color his thinking about the world in general. He's dissatisfied with his life even as a young boy; he expects the kite that Sam makes for him to fail, because he considers everything else to be a failure. He's grown accustomed to being disappointed.
Quote #3
HALLY. I don't know. Would have been just as strange, I suppose if it had been me and my Dad…cripple man and a little boy! Nope! There's no chance of me flying a kite without it being strange. (Simple statement of fact—no self-pity) (923-927)
Now we're getting down to the heart of the matter. It's not clear why Hally has had such a terrible childhood, but we start to see that part of his dissatisfaction has to do with his father's disability. It's affected the way that Hally thinks about himself, as different and "crippled" as his father. We know that he has enormous shame about his father's drinking and his disability, and Sam tries to convince Hally that it doesn't reflect on him.