How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph) Note that chapters aren't numbered, so need to be numbered manually, 1 to 14.
Quote #7
"He was giving me such a strange look."
"So you're an attractive woman."
"No, this was a different sort of look… as if…" She trembled, looked up at me momentarily, then lowered her head. (8.170-172)
Rheya says Snow gave her a strange look—or perhaps a look that says that she is strange. Kelvin suggests it's a look of desire, emphasizing the difference between men and women, but Rheya thinks it's a look emphasizing another kind of difference. The parallel here seems important: Rheya is different because she's an alien, and being an alien is, for the novel, analogous to being a woman. Which raises the question—is Solaris the ocean a female or a male?
Quote #8
"It is true that we are not exactly alike. But there is nothing wrong with that. In any case, whatever else we might think about it, that…difference… saved your life." (9.171)
Kelvin is happy that Rheya is an alien other because this means she can't kill herself. Difference is also presumably part of the reason he loves her, since he's a heterosexual guy. Difference is good. But Solaris often suggests that difference doesn't exist. So that's bad. You can't win on Solaris, which is why no one has built a casino there (even though it would be a boost to the tourism industry).
Quote #9
""The Despairing Jelly," "The Planet in Orgasm"" (11.175)
Kelvin's Ph.D. implied that the Solaris ocean might have something analogous to human emotions. Headline writers loved the idea, and cheerfully anthropomorphized the ocean. Kelvin thinks this is stupid—but, of course, his whole experience on Solaris has been of the planet anthropomorphizing itself, and creating a face (Rheya) that really does despair, and perhaps has orgasms (though Lem is very circumspect about Kelvin and Rheya's sex life: see the "Steaminess Rating" section). So are we silly for seeing the other as the self? Or are we silly for harrumphing that the other is not the self?