How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
The old man's head whipped around, and he frowned at the sight of me huddled next to the shrouded girl. He cast a baleful eye upon the doctor.
"The boy is coming with us?"
Dr. Warthrop nodded impatiently. "Of course he is."
"Begging your pardon, doctor, but this is no business for a child."
"Will Henry is my assistant," the doctor replied with a smile. He gave my head a paternal pat. "A child by outward appearance, perhaps, but mature beyond his years and hardier than he might seem to the unfamiliar eye. His services are indispensable to me." (2.139-143)
Could the "paternal pat" be interpreted as pride? Either he is proud of his brave ward or he is exaggerating what he's capable of because he's worried Erasmus won't accept his assistant coming with them.
Quote #5
If the doctor had known what horrors awaited us not only at the cemetery that night, but in the days to come, would he still have insisted upon my company? Would he still have demanded that a mere child dive so deep into the well of human suffering and sacrifice—a literal sea of blood? And if the answer to that question is yes, then there are more terrifying monstrosities in the world than Anthropophagi. Monstrosities who, with a smile and a comforting pat on the head, are willing to sacrifice a child upon the altar of their own overweening ambition and pride. (2.149)
We think that Dr. Warthrop might have been in a bit of denial about what he was walking into. Surely he wasn't prepared to be attacked by a large group of the creatures, let alone have their guide get devoured in a half-dug grave while his twelve-year-old assistant watched.
Quote #6
What more need I say about this odd and solitary figure, this genius who labored all his life in obscurity in the most obscure of sciences, whom the world would little note nor long remember, but to whom the world owed much, this man who possessed, it seemed, not the slightest shred of humility or warmth, who lacked empathy and compassion and the ability to read men's hearts—or the heart of a twelve-year-old boy whose world had been shattered in an awful instant? To bring up my father in a moment like this! What more may I offer as evidence of my hypothesis that this man's hubris rose to heights—or sunk to depths—rarely seen outside the confines of Greek theater or the tragedies of Shakespeare? He did not equivocate with me. He did not couch his words in comforting bromides or shopworn clichés. He had saved my life because my life was important to him. He had saved my life for his sake, for the furtherance of his ambition. Thus even his mercy was rooted in his ego. (4.53)
It's interesting that he refers to Greek theater when he describes Dr. Warthrop's hubris. In Green plays, characters who suffer from hubris are often punished by the gods in very creative ways. Is there any comeuppance that Dr. Warthrop receives as a result of his pride and self-absorption?