How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
At times he would grab himself as if to pull his sex out by the roots. [...] He wanted to pack his heart with gunpowder and blow it up. (14.5)
Oops. There goes Mother's Younger Brother again, tortured with memories of Evelyn and his own shame. It's no coincidence that when he masturbates he wants to either strangle his penis or blow up his heart.
Quote #8
He would take a woman to his hotel room and then sit in a chair with one shoe in his hand and completely forget about her. Or he would not attempt to make love but only inspect her intimate places. (22.2)
Younger Brother's shame regarding sex has now reached a strange impasse, where he desires the company of women but, when he finally attains it, he does not have sex. Instead he seeks to shame them also by making the time with them clinical, inspecting them as if he were a doctor.
Quote #9
Mother's bathing costume was modest but she required several days to feel comfortable in it. [...] She insisted that they separate themselves by several hundred yards from the nearest bathers. [...] Father wore a horizontal striped blue and white sleeveless one piece bathing suit that made cylinders of his thighs. Mother found it distasteful to see the outlines of his maleness in that costume when he emerged from the water. (33.3)
Even though Mother is getting more in touch with her sexuality in the bedroom, this scene shows how much she is still fearful of being sexual or displaying her body (or her husband's body) in public. Bikinis were still a long ways off.