How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"But we were all different. The wax—the virginal wax that coats the spine melted in different patches for each of us. The growl of the boot-boy making love to the tweeny among the gooseberry bushes; the clothes blown out hard on the line; the dead man in the gutter; the apple tree, stark in the moonlight; the rat swarming with maggots; the lustre dripping blue—our white wax was streaked and stained by each of these differently. Louis was disgusted by the nature of human flesh; Rhoda by our cruelty; Susan could not share; Neville wanted order; Jinny love; and so on. We suffered terribly as we became separate bodies." (9b.5)
Now Bernard reflects on what made each of the narrators distinct and how those differences developed.
Quote #8
"…We saw for a moment laid out among us the body of the complete human being whom we have failed to be, but at the same time, cannot forget. All that we might have been we saw; all that we had missed, and we grudged for a moment the other's claim, as children when the cake is cut, the one cake, the only cake, watch their slice diminishing." (9b.48)
Here, Bernard addresses this thorny question of whether the different narrators have actually been separate entities all this time or not. Because Bernard says they have "failed" to be a complete human being, it kind of sounds like maybe this "six narrators-in-one" thing was metaphorical? We really wish Woolf was around to answer this one.
Quote #9
"Wait," I said, putting my arm in imagination (thus we consort with our friends) through her arm. "Wait until these omnibuses have gone by. Do not cross so dangerously. These men are your brothers." In persuading her I was also persuading my own soul. For this is not one life; nor do I always know if I am man or woman, Bernard or Neville, Louis, Susan, Jinny, or Rhoda—so strange is the contact of one with another." (9b.53)
Again, Bernard is suggesting how intertwined the lives of the narrators are and blurs the boundaries between their individual identities (and even between the categories of male and female).