How we cite our quotes: (line number)
Quote #4
Besides, or, rather, to be pointed about it, good old Mom walked out on good old Pop when I was ten and a half years old; she embarked on a an adulterous turn of our southern states…a journey of a year's duration…and her most constant companion…among others, among many others, was a Mr. Barleycorn. (116)
Mr. Barleycorn? Seriously? She ran away with a Mr. Barleycorn? Is Jerry telling us the true hidden tragedy of his soul, or is he making up a past and family? It's not clear whether the play is using a tragic family to make Jerry a tragic figure, or whether Jerry is deliberately inventing a tragic family to make Peter pity him.
Quote #5
But that was a long time ago, and I have no feeling about any of it that I care to admit to myself. Perhaps you can see, though, why good old Mom and good old Pop are frameless. (118)
Jerry says he has no feelings he would "care to admit to himself." He's deliberately hiding from his own emotions about his family. Is Peter doing the same? Is this the real life…or is this just fantasy?
Quote #6
JERRY: And you threw them away just before you got married.
PETER: Oh, now; look here. I didn't need anything like that when I got older. (135)
Jerry and Peter are talking about the pornographic playing cards. Once you have a family, Peter suggests, you don't need pornography… and maybe not sex either? We're not so sure about that, but we are pretty sure that the cards are seedy and ugly, like Jerry himself—but the alternative seems to be simple domestic boredom. Dull or seedy; those are your options for life in this play, Shmoopers. Choose wisely.