How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"But that is the trial I have to bear in everything: I may not keep anything I used to love when I was little." (5.1.17)
It is interesting that, while Maggie fights so hard to keep her past, she sees the lost of her past as some sort of inevitable trial. Perhaps it is because she is afraid she will ultimately lose her past that Maggie fights so hard to keep it.
Quote #8
Apparently the mingled thread in the web of their life was so curiously twisted together that there could be no joy without a sorrow coming close upon it. (5.7.23)
Tom is revealing his pessimistic side here, as he adopts a fatalistic, or depressing and doomed, view of his family’s life. It begs the question as to whether or not this sort of depressed attitude that anticipates suffering actually causes it in the first place. It may be a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Quote #9
"But I begin to think there can never come much happiness to me from loving: I have always had so much pain mingled with it, I wish I could make myself a world outside it, as men do." (6.7.23)
Multiple themes are linked together here for Maggie: suffering, gender inequality (which causes suffering), love (which essentially is suffering). Like many characters in this book, Maggie has a very depressed attitude towards life. It is interesting that she sees men as having the power to possibly escape suffering, or at least the kind tied into love.