How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Kitty snakes her arms around Laura's waist. Laura is flooded with feeling. Here, right here in her arms, are Kitty's fear and courage, Kitty's illness. Here are her breasts. Here is the stout, practical heart that beats beneath; here are the watery lights of her being—deep pink lights, red-gold lights, glittering, unsteady; lights that gather and disperse; here are the depths of Kitty, the heart beneath the heart; the untouchable essence that a man (Ray, of all people!) dreams of, yearns toward, searches for so desperately at night. (9.72)
Laura Brown shares an unexpected and intimate moment with her neighbor, Kitty, but the two women play it off like nothing happened. What do you think, Shmoopers? Could some feelings of repressed or unfulfilled sexuality be contributing to Laura's depression?
Quote #8
"Well," Clarissa says. She can think of nothing else to say. She feels sorry for Louis, and deeply impatient, and yet, she thinks, Louis is in love. He is in love with a young man. He is fifty-three and still has all that ahead of him, the sex and the ridiculous arguments, the anguish. (11.106)
Although Clarissa Vaughan is annoyed to hear that her friend Louis Waters has fallen in love with yet another one of his drama students, she's a little bit jealous of him, too. After all, she's been feeling like her days of sexual adventure are far behind her, and here's Louis, a year older than she is, climbing back into the saddle for more.
Quote #9
She touches her lips, where Kitty's kiss briefly resided. She doesn't mind so much about the kiss, what it does and does not imply, except that it gives Kitty an edge. Love is deep, a mystery—who wants to understand its every particular? Laura desires Kitty. She desires her force, her brisk and cheerful disappointment, the shifting pink-gold lights of her secret self and the crisp, shampooed depths of her hair. Laura desires Dan, too, in a darker and less exquisite way; a way that is more subtly haunted by cruelty and shame. Still it is desire; sharp as a bone chip. (12.6)
All things considered, Laura Brown seems to be very comfortable with the sudden realization that she desires her neighbor, Kitty. Since we don't learn anything about her sexual history, we have no way of knowing if that unexpected kiss in the kitchen was a moment of epiphany for Laura. Maybe she already knew that she was attracted to women; maybe she didn't. One thing's for sure: Michael Cunningham makes a point of avoiding any of the tropes that depict bisexual people as tormented and confused.