Small Island (the rest)

Bernard
-Why does he show up so late in the book?  What effect does this have on the reader?
-Thinks of Queenie often while abroad.  Actually cares for her.  Knew all her details.
-Why did it take so long for the British to send his unit back?
-Only been with one girl (Queenie) until Calcutta
-Growing up with Arthur as a father... how does it appear to impact his life?
       -"When the first dazzling red flower appeared, he cried. Openly."(p.331) <--Maybe why Bernard cried openly in front of Queenie years later.
       -cleaned up his father's "crusty white stains on the sheets, on his pants." (p.332) and parents never had sex after Arthur returned... impacted his sex life?
-thought Queenie shut the door and was happy to be rid of him, but Queenie secretly watched out the window, and he never knew. :(
-Do you think that the war made him more racist?  Or was he always that racist?
-Inconsistency:
        -felt bad for having really rough sex with only a girl of about thirteen: "This war hadn't made me a hero.  It had brought me to my knees... 'I'm so sorry'" but after she calls him Johnny, he "just threw the money at the wretched whore, then left." (p.341)  shows his volatile character.
        -upset that Queenie wasn't active during sex ("She let me do it to her, of course, but only because I was her husband and going away to who knew where?  She let me, but she lay there like a limp rag." p.333), but when he has sex with the girl in Calcutta and she moves and moans, he tells her to "Shut up" and "stay still"(p.339-40)  Why?  Wanted limp Queenie instead?  Or wasn't used to having to move his body in conjunction with another?
         -Bernard cares for the black baby but still hates black people. "Listen, Bernard. He needs a home. A good home." "He's got a home." (p.430)  "Get your filthy black hands off my wife!" (p.434)  (see more under "Baby"
-actually thinks he knows better than everyone...does he? or is he simply overpraising himself.
        -Petrol incident (p.292)
        -Didn't bring a blanket although he was told to, because he "couldn't see the need."(p.291)
        -"The Japs are just clockwork toys..."(p.290)
        -working the fire hose (p.320)


Doctors:
-tells Queenie can't get pregnant unless she enjoys sex... yeah, OHkay.
-tells Bernard that he doesn't have Syphilis if no symptoms have been present in two years although untreated syphilis can lay dormant for years...


Chapter 48 (p.362-3)
-Bernard's Dream
-Bernard sees a Japanese man smiling at him in his house.  Thinks he might not be so bad after all.  Then the Japanese man pulls out a sword and he is scared for himself and Queenie.  Queenie sits up and says Hello to the man as if they were friends.  "Hello.  Come in."
-Bernard thinks of the colored people in his home as enemies invading it...he can't allow himself to accept their presence because they're still bad people even if they look pleasant...even if Queenie accepts them


Hortense and Gilbert's new relationship
-Hortense leaves the building without a job and finally understands England
-Gilbert cheers her up and she begins to open up to him
-"...her eyes gazed upon me.  And I believe it was the first time they looked at me without scorn." (p.381)
-"She smiled."(p.381)
-"It was a timid hand I stretched across the table to place over hers. I waited for her to slap it away.  But she did not." (p.384)
-"This is a good room..." (p.417)
-"Are you teasing me, Gilbert Joseph?" (p.382)
-"do you want to sleep in the bed with me?" (p.419)
-"I felt her foot press lightly against my leg.  I moved my leg away.  But soon the little cold foot followed." (p.419)
-"I realised that Gilbert joseph, my husband, was a man of class, a man of character, a man of intelligence."(p.435)
-Gilbert starts to fall in love.
-"Two breaths skipped before I could carry on." (p.381)
-"She laughed and I swear the sky, louring above our heads, opened on a sharp beam of sunlight."(p.381)
-"Her face was so pretty wearing merry, I wanted to kiss it." (p.382)
-"For before me I suddenly saw quite the most wonderful woman....all I wanted to do was kiss her."(p.418)


Race/Nationalism:
-"The British out of India?  Only British troops could keep those coolies under control."(p.308)
-"Last name rather queer... He tried writing it down for me once, slowly with great concentration, but it was just a jumble of letters in no apparent order." (p.315)
-"Little chap, but muscly for an Indian.  And happy.  Not miserable like most of them." (p.315)
-"I was glad to hear he was grateful." (p.316)
(sarcasm?)"No, I am lucky to learn the language at school. They call me a little brown Englishman there.  The British have taught me so many useful things....What would we poor Indians have done without you British?  ...all the things the British are giving us in India...tax and cricket..." (p.316)
(sarcasm?)"A gift from the British to an ignorant people....Without your rule of law what are we?" (p.317)
"Are you not protecting us all this time from the filthy Japs with their slitty eyes? ...Your British bulldog understands that there is nothing worse than foreigners invading your land...a dreadful thing to have foreign muddy boots stamping all over your soil." (p.317)
-"An Englishman proud of his country, right or wrong." (p.344)
-"Bloody coolies." (p.323)
-"Then the cheeky blighter put his hand out for me to shake.  I just shut the bloody door on him." (p.355)
-"I don't doubt that, Queenie, but did they have to be coloured?  Couldn't you have got decent lodgers for the house?  Respectable people?" (p.360)
-"Get rid of all these coolies...the lodgers, I mean.  Let them find somewhere more suitable for their type anyway." (p.360)
-"You ever see that, Gilbert, a white man go red?" (p.367)
-"He's the sort of ruffian make me ashamed to come from the same island." (p.369)
-"These coloured people don't have the same standards. I'd seen it out east.  Not used to our ways."(p.388)
-"The war was fought so people might live with their own kind...I've nothing against them in their place.  But their place isn't here." (p.388)
-"What he deserved was to be thrown out on the street.  Him and all the other ungrateful swine."(p.390)
-"But I'd seen all their tricks out in India." (p.390) <-groups all nonwhite people in same category
-"It's everything to do with you.  You and your kind." (p.403) <-said same thing to Pierpoint
-"I looked like a suspect.  What crime?  Oh, any will do." (p.405) <-still happens today
-"Come, everyone know we silly darkie postmen were always getting lost." (p. 415)
-"You wan'know what your white skin make you, man?  It make you white.  That is all, man.  White.  No better, no worse than me--just white." (p.435)


Gender:
-"I thought he'd take it hot like a man after being in the RAF for so long." (p.357)
-"Shouldn't have to hear that from your wife.... Especially in front of coloureds." (p.391)


Politics:
-"Of course, it was the Communists who started it.  Uncle Joe Stalin's friends....Even the chaps who should've known better began agreeing with these rabble-rousers." (p.301)
-"But I soon realised I'd sat in the red corner among the Communists.  I would have known to avoid them if I'd seen their faces." (p.312)


Baby
-"I wasn't ashamed, I just didn't want prying eyes making it sordid." (p.411)  But later chooses to give her baby away because she can't handle those prying eyes.
-Michael Roberts'
-Hortense never knew she got to have Michael's baby after all
-Named it Michael (ew)
-Bernard cared for it: "His dark skin fresh as a polished shoe. Flat nose.  Nostrils, tiny pips. Lips elegant, as if recently drawn." (p.421) "Was soon sucking on my finger.  Clamping his gums around, soggy, wet.  And warm.  He sucked it like it was nectar.  Quite content.  Actually, he was a dear little thing." (p.422)
-Queenie didn't think Bernard wanted to take the baby to the suburbs.
-But Bernard wants to take care of the baby, even though he's black.  "He's got a home." (p.430) "Adopted, that's what we'll say." (p.431)
-"Why, in god's name, would Queenie think to entrust the baby's upbringing to people like you?" (p.434)  Bernard was still completely racist against blacks, yet would defend the black baby because it was Queenie's.



Other Things:
-Do you think Arun and Ashok took Bernard's gun?  Or did he just blame them because he couldn't remember what he did with it and they're natives?
-to Johnny Pierpoint: "It's got everything to do with you and your sort." (p.338)  Class? Race? Politics?
-"England had shrunk.  It was smaller than the place I'd left." (p.350)  <-Gilbert said similar thing about Jamaica
-"'But you don't know them?'  'No, but I know they are from home.'  I did not tell her that some days I was so pleased to see a black face I felt to run and hug the familiar stranger." (p.384)  <-Same thing at Wake.  Black people who don't even know each other say hi when they pass by because they feel a connection in this sea of white faces.  According to my (black) friend, anyway.
"I lost them all in a hurricane." (p.409) <--WHY DID HE SAY THAT?