'the Magic Toyshop' Quotes

Front 1

Melanie's obsession with marriage and sex

Back 1

"Grow fat and nobody would ever love her and she would die virgin."

Front 2

Melanie's childish behaviour

Back 2

"Sometimes doing cartwheels and handstands out of sheer exhilaration."

Front 3

Melanie's change after parents' deaths

Back 3

"She was the last, the only woman."

Front 4

Melanie's attraction to Finn

Back 4

"His Atlantic-coloured regard went over Melanie like a wave."

Front 5

Melanie's repulsion by Finn

Back 5

"poverty-stricken slum smell"

Front 6

First impressions of the house

Back 6

"The light was as murky as that in the window."

Front 7

Redness symbolism for isolation

Back 7

"She was a red woman, redder, even, than Finn and Francie."

Front 8

Aunt Margaret's silence

Back 8

"She would have been a talkative woman if she could."

Front 9

Melanie's isolation

Back 9

"She could not bear to be such a stranger, so alien."

Front 10

Uncle Philip's attitude to women

Back 10

"He likes, you know, silent women."

Front 11

Uncle Philip's presence at the table

Back 11

"Presiding magisterially over the platter" or "His authority was stifling."

Front 12

Desolation in South London

Back 12

"Crumbling in decay, overladen with a desolate burden of humanity."

Front 13

The Pleasure Garden

Back 13

"The park lay in sodden neglect, sprawling over its rank acreage as if it had passed out."

Front 14

Isolation of the house

Back 14

The isolation of the Flower household on top of the South Suburban hill was complete."

Front 15

Spyhole

Back 15

"A hole in the wall, through which light shone from the next room."

Front 16

Aunt Margaret's necklace

Back 16

"It was heavy, crippling"

Front 17

Symbolism of Uncle Philip's control

Back 17

"He's pulled our strings as if we were his puppets."

Front 18

Philip's power over Melanie during the play

Back 18

"The swan towered over the black-haired girl."

Front 19

Celebratory atmosphere as Uncle Philip is gone

Back 19

"The very bacon bounced and crackled in the pan for joy because Philip was not."

Front 20

Melanie's embrace of her new life

Back 20

"It would be best to cut out her memory and her dreams."

Front 21

Melanie's fate with Finn at the end

Back 21

"Melanie thought: 'Now that we have shared all this, we can never be like other people. We can only be like ourselves and one another. We only have each other, now.' "

Front 22

Finn changes after the play

Back 22

"After this, Finn stopped grinning." or "Worst of all, his grace was gone."

Front 23

Finn in Melanie's bed

Back 23

"They were in bed as two married people who had laid in bed easily together all their lives."

Front 24

Isolation of the Flowers

Back 24

"The Flowers were quite private. Nobody ever visited them."

Front 25

Melanie losing her mind

Back 25

"In the dresser drawer was a freshly severed hand, all bloody at the roots."

Front 26

Finn chops up the swan

Back 26

"I was lying in my bed and suddenly I thought I'd do it. I don't know why. It came to me. I'll kill his swan for him."

Front 27

Melanie yearning for childhood

Back 27

"Some of her childhood seemed trapped in the pages."