“It makes the white of that eye look so lovely and clear” was one of the idiotic but pardonable things my mother would say, in the hope of helping me to admire myself.”
Here, the narrator’s mother tried to normalize the narrator’s birthmark by concentrating on the birthmark’s affirmative effects. Even though the narrator considers the mother’s assertion ‘idiotic’, it was influential in heartening the narrator to cultivate self-esteem notwithstanding the birthmark.
“It is clear that I did not contribute to a comfortable marriage.”
The narrator discerns his ‘Self-Concept’ by relating it to the sore marriage between his parents. He takes liability for the teething troubles between his parents which makes him to feel like an outsider in the family.
“Another possible reason for his growling dislike has just occurred to me, and it’s odd that I didn’t think of it before. We were both flawed, the obvious victims of physical misfortune. You would think that such people would make common cause, but it just as often happens that they don’t. Each may be reminded by the other of something he’d sooner forget.”
The narrator summarizes the frosty relationship between him and a gardener (Pete). Turns out, the gardener has a physical deformity which made him drag his legs while walking. The narrator affirms there was no solidarity between him and the gardener even though both of them had physical challenges. Perhaps, the gardener’s face, which was not blemished, made the narrator conscious about his defective face. Similarly, the narrator’s body, reminded the gardener about his own weak body which appeared as if had undergone stroke.
"Of course, I know that if I had spotted Nancy years later—on the subway, for instance, in Toronto, both of us bearing our recognizable marks—we would in all probability have managed only one of those embarrassed and meaningless conversations, hurriedly listing useless autobiographical facts. I would have noted the mended, nearly normal cheek or the still obvious scar, but it would not have come into the conversation."
Clearly, the marks on the cheeks are figurative of the bond between Nancy and the narrator. As an adult, the narrator has grasped the impetus for Nancy’s decision to cut her cheeks, so their encounter, would be disconcerting considering how the narrator had initially reacted to Nancy’s red-painted face. The scars from their childhood are still existent in their adult lives.
“Watch out, Flo said as well, for people dressed up as ministers. They were the worst. That disguise was commonly adopted by White Slavers, as well as those after your money.”
Flo alerts Rose about devious people who appeal to the impression of their targets by dressing elegantly. The stylish dressing is a façade that obscures the evil intents of two-faced ministers and White Slaves. Flo’s notification is logical as it enlightens Rose about the potency of peripheral disguises.
“Her imagination seemed to have created this reality, a reality she was not prepared for at all. She found it alarming.”
Rose envisages that the minister's hand is in contact with her skin. The intensity of the fantasy makes Rose to mistake her illusions for reality. She is startled by the illusion of possible bodily contact because she is an unworldly girl who lacks familiarity with sexual matters.
“This was disgrace, this was beggary. But what harm in that, we say to ourselves at such moments, what harm in anything, the worse the better, as we ride the cold wave of greed, or greedy assent.”
This quote depicts human beings’ inclination to put up and sustain thoughts of greed. Even though Rose’s sexual imaginations are reprehensible, she is obligated to entertain them because they fulfill her unconscious yearning for sexual activity. Rose is a victim of human instincts, thus her imaginations cannot be disparaged all together.
