How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
She was stretched on a deep-piled chunky couch that was eight feet long and claret-coloured. She was leafing through the latest issue of Sheek, a fashion magazine which was all pictures. Bustles, her eye noted, were decreed by Paris for day-wear; daring décolletages were de rigueur for evening; Hongkong cheongsams were lascivious with fourfold slits. Sex. War and sex. Babies and bullets. (5.1.4)
Whereas the Pelagian society in the first half of the novel associates heterosexual sex with death (more babies = more mouths to feed = less food to go around), the Augustinian society in the novel's second half associates heterosexual sex with life (human fertility = fertility in the farms and fields). This positive association comes at a cost, though, because now the British people are being told that death itself is sexy too.