- "Everyone fighting a war hates. All must conjure a list of demons. The enemy. Top of most British Tommies' list would be the army that hated them most- the Nazis... But from that first uneasy hospitality at the American base in Virginia to this cocky hatred that was charging across the room to yell in the face of a colored man whose audacity was to sit with a white woman, I was learning to despise the white American GI above all other. They were the army that hated me most!... If the defeat of hatred is the purpose of war, then come, let us face it: I and all other coloured servicemen were fighting this war on another front." (P147)
- "We fighting the persecution of the Jew, yet even in my RAF blue my colored skin can permit anyone to treat me as less than a man." (P 154)
- "Man it was hatred raged in these men's eyes not anger! Tell me, if you build a bonfire from the driest tinder, is it the stray spark you blame when the flames start to lick?" (P 157)
- "What a thing was this to wish for. That a person regarding me should think nothing. What a forlorn desire to seek indifference." (P 260)
Gilbert also represents the interaction between hope and defeat
- "This was a beautiful island. As sweet with promise as the honey that would soon flow from the combs. I stuck my fingers into the soft earth that yielded under them. If I held them there long enough, surely this abundant country could make me grow." (P 168)
- "'Elwood, I tired of fighting.'" (P 173)
- What is your reaction to Elwood's response- "You may look like one of us but not'in' gon' change the fact your daddy is a white man.'" (P173)
- "I was about to bend my knee so I could reach the brooch when hear this,, if flew away. Black flecks suddenly pitting the air. That jewel was no more than a cluster of flies caught by the light, the radiant iridescent green the movement of their squabbling backs. My eyes no longer believed what they saw. For after the host of flies flew they left me with just the small piece of brown dog's shit they had all gathered on. Was this a sign? Maybe." (P 176)
- "And I say, 'I cannot see you on your knees so soon. I did not bring you to England to scrub a floor on your knees. No wife of mine will be on her knees in this country.'" (P 263)
- "I had no intention of eating that precious candy. For it was a salvation to me- not for the sugar but for the act of kindness. The human tenderness with which it was given to me. I had become hungry for the good in people. Beholden to any tender heart." (P 270)
Nationalism & Housing Refugees
- Reference to the feather given to men who did not join the war effort- page 198.
- How does this portray the 'us vs. them' phenomenon that prevails throughout the book?
- Is the feather a symbol for something?
- Gilbert's observation that he was treated better than black Americans because he was British.
- Elwood telling Gilbert that he should stay and fight for Jamaica rather than leaving to fight for England.
- "So when this ministry man visited to check up on our refugee, all I had to do was tell him, 'Nothing and no one.'" (P 221)
- "But it wasn't an invasion- it was a sadder sight than that. It was a family... They were not the first such family, so Mr. Todd told all the other neighbors. This was the third lot he'd seen and he hoped there would be no more. They'd been bombed out round Rother hithe and someone high up in some ministry had decided they should be rehoused in the empty rooms down our street." (P 223)
- "Population, that's what I was. Smouldering like a kipper, I was one of the bombed." (P 251)
- What do you think about Queenie's distinction between people and population while she works in the assistance shelter?
Arthur
- How does Arthur's death before his character is fully developed affect the telling of the story?
- The only words he speaks in the book- "I would die if anything happened to you." (P 254)
- Why do you think he chooses not to speak?
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