How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"And then," said Bernard, "the cab came to the door, and, pressing our new bowler hats tightly over our eyes to hide our unmanly tears, we drove through streets in which even the housemaids looked at us, and our names painted in white letters on our boxes proclaimed to all the world that we were going to school with the regulation number of socks and drawers, on which our mothers for some nights previously had stitched our initials, in our boxes. A second severance from the body of our mother." (4b.29)
Bernard thinks about how the children separated to go off to boarding school. He connects this separation from his school buddies to the separation of mother and child… abandonment issues much?
Quote #5
"There is a red carnation in that vase. A single flower as we sat here waiting, but now a seven-sided flower, many-petalled, red, puce, purple-shaded, stiff with silver-tinted leaves—a whole flower to which every eye brings its own contribution." (4b.39)
Here, Bernard observes that the seven friends assembled together make up a kind of "whole" that is symbolized by the seven-petalled flower. As they are waiting for Percival, the friends reflect that the group is not complete without their seventh member, and it is clear throughout the novel that each character's unique characteristics and personality contribute something distinct to the group. The flower shows this novel's emphasis on the multifaceted.
Quote #6
"Marriage, death, travel, friendship," said Bernard; "town and country; children and all that; a many-sided substance cut out of this dark; a many-faceted flower. Let us stop for a moment; let us behold what we have made. Let it blaze against the yew trees. One life. There. It is over. Gone out." (8b.44)
In reflecting upon the many different lives the narrators have led and the priorities they have, Bernard once again envisions the friends as a flower, this time "many-faceted" rather than "many-petalled." Here, the single flower also becomes the symbol of the "one life" that the characters have shared.