How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from The Graduate.
Quote #7
MR. BRADDOCK: Ben, what are you doing?
BENJAMIN: Well, I would say that I'm just drifting. Here in the pool.
MR. BRADDOCK Why?
BENJAMIN: Well, it's very comfortable just to drift here.
It's totally more comfortable to hang out in the pool than to have to figure out what you want out of life. Nichols' used the pool to symbolize Ben's aimless and amorphous sense of self.
Quote #8
BENJAMIN: I'm good enough for you but I'm too slimy to associate with your daughter. That's it, isn't it? ISN'T IT?
MRS. ROBINSON: Yes.
BENJAMIN: You go to hell. You go straight to hell, Mrs. Robinson. Do you think I'm proud of myself? Do you think I'm proud of this?
MRS. ROBINSON: I wouldn't know.
BENJAMIN: Well, I'm not.
So much for the identity of "cool guy sleeping with older woman." The affair with Mrs. Robinson has just plunged Ben into greater self-disgust, pointlessness, and uncertainty. Up until now, Ben has only discovered what he doesn't want to be. Meeting Elaine changes that.
Quote #9
BENJAMIN: I've had this feeling ever since I graduated. This kind of compulsion that I have to be rude all the time...It's like I was playing some kind of game, but the rules don't make any sense to me. They're being made up by all the wrong people. I mean no one makes them up. They seem to make themselves up.
Here's one reason Ben feels lost as a person: he feels he's living by other peoples' rules. When you're doing this, you don't have to figure out your own rules and your own meaning.