Show:
Who Says So?
Bruno & Guy
Railway Mobility
Gender Relations
Opposites, Anyone?
100
"I never seen another woman like my mother."
Who says this line and how is it important to the novel?
100
"He [Bruno] looked up, and the hatred for his father penetrated his fuzziness like a barb. . . . Guy felt he understood why Bruno loathed Miriam. It seemed the key to Bruno's whole personality, to the hatred of his father and to his retarded adolescence" (28).
Explain how this passage gives us insight into Bruno's character.
100
"Guy wanted to get out and take a walk, but the train kept on and on in a straight line, like something that would never stop" (33).
How does this reference to the railway relate to the narrative (the course of the novel)?
100
"How sure he [Guy] had once been that he possessed her, possessed her every frailest thought! Suddenly it seemed that all love was only a tantalizing, a horrible next-best to knowing. He knew not the smallest part of the new world in Miriam's mind now. Was it possible that the same thing could happen with Anne?"
What does this passage reveal about Guy's relationships with women?
100
Creation & destruction
How is this opposition examined in the novel?
200
"I'm no more insane than you are!"
Who says this line and what does it suggest about the characters having the conversation?
200
"Guy looked at him in disgust. Bruno seemed to be growing indefinite at the edges, as if by some process of deliquescence. He seemed only a voice and a spirit now, the spirit of evil. All he despised, Guy thought, Bruno represented. All the things he would not want to be, Bruno was, or would become" (33-34).
What is the significance of this passage, given what happens after Guy and Bruno's meeting on the train?
200
"He [Guy] shifted his position, accidentally touched the outstretched foot of the young man asleep, and watched fascinatedly as the lashes twitched and came open" (12).
How does Guy fail to maintain "appropriate social distance" when he meets Bruno on the train?
200
"The little floozy! Women who slept around made him furious, made him ill, like the mistresses his father used to have, that had turned all his school holidays into nightmares because he had not known if his mother knew and was only pretending to be happy, or if she did not know at all" (67-68).
How does this passage give us insight into Bruno's misogyny?
200
Love & hate
What examples of love/hate relationships do you see in the novel? What do they suggest?
300
"You make me feel I don't know you at all!"
Who says this to whom? What does it suggest about their relationship?
300
"Oh, yes, he had felt terrific power! That was it. He had taken away a life. Now, nobody knew what life was, everybody defended it, the most priceless possession, but he had taken one away . . . only the mysterious fact of the thing he did remained, the mystery and the miracle of stopping life. People talked about the mystery of birth, of beginning life. . . . What about the mystery of stopping life?"
What does this passage suggest about Bruno and the murder?
300
"His [Bruno's] energies that had been dissipated, spread like a flooded river over land as flat and boring as the Llano Estacado he was crossing now, seemed gathered in a vortex whose point strove toward Metcalf like the aggressive thrust of the train" (67).
What does Bruno's train ride suggest about him and what he is about to do?
300
"In greater measure than ever before, she [Anne] offered him [Guy] the tenderness and reassurance he needed so, yet he found that in his lowest, most stubborn moments he could not always accept it" (113).
What is the nature of Guy's dependency on Anne?
300
Crime or deviance & goodness or morality
How does the novel examine these concepts?
400
"Sometimes I think I hate everything in the world. No decency, no conscience. She's what people mean when they say America never grows up, America rewards the corrupt."
Who says these lines, who is the subject ("she"), and why does the speaker feel this way?
400
"It was Bruno who made him hate to look at picture of the Palmyra now . . . Bruno who had made him argue senselessly with Anne . . . Bruno who had made him tell Anne he did not consider himself a success. . . . Perhaps it was Bruno who kept him from getting jobs now. The creation of a building was a spiritual act. So long as he harbored his knowledge of Bruno's guilt, he corrupted himself in a sense" (112-113).
How much control does Bruno have over Guy, and how much does Guy allow himself to be controlled by Bruno?
400
"He [Guy] felt his life disorganized, without direction, more chaotic than when he had heard of Miriam's murder" (131). "He felt he moved on certain definite tracks now, and that he could not have stopped himself or gotten off them if he had wanted to" (146).
How are these two quotations connected? How much of a passive figure, or "parcel," is Guy as he travels to commit murder?
400
"He [Guy] longed to merge his life with hers [Anne's]" (130). "She [Anne] spoke slowly, and Guy was all at once terrified, realizing she was a separate person from himself, a person with a different mind, different reactions" (162).
How is the theme of merging (or coupling/uncoupling) important in Guy's relationship with Anne?
400
Agency & passivity
How much control, or lack of control, do characters have as the story moves forward?
500
"I want you and I've got you! Okay!"
Who says this to whom? What does it suggest about the relationship between the two characters?
500
"He was like Bruno. Hadn't he sensed it time and time again, and like a coward never admitted it? Hadn't he known Bruno was like himself? Or why had he liked Bruno? He loved Bruno. Bruno had prepared every inch of the way for him, and everything would go well because everything always went well for Bruno. The world was geared for people like Bruno" (148).
How similar are Guy and Bruno? How does Highsmith "annihilate" the distance between them? Why does Guy "love" Bruno?
500
"The train tore along with an angry, irregular rhythm. It was having to stop at smaller and more frequent stations, where it would wait impatiently for a moment, then attack the prairie again. But progress was imperceptible. The prairie only undulated, like a vast, pink-tan blanket being casually shaken. The faster the train went, the more buoyant and taunting the undulations" (9).
How does this opening passage set the tone for the novel?
500
"('What significance did it have for you that your victim was female?') Where had that question come from? Bruno hesitated, then recovered his poise. Well, the fact she was a female had given him greater enjoyment. No, he did not therefore conclude that his pleasure had partaken of the sexual. No, he did not hate women either. Rather not! Hate is akin to love, you know. Who said that? He didn't believe it for a minute. No, all he would say was that he wouldn't have enjoyed it quite so much, he thought, if he had killed a man. Unless it was his father" (107).
What significance does it have for Bruno that his victim was female?
500
Heterosexuality/normativity & homosexuality/sociality
How does Highsmith's novel destabilize conventional notions of gender and sexuality?