Beloved

"Suspended between the nastiness of life andthe meanness of hte dead, she couldn't get interested in leaving life or living it, let alone the firght of two creeping-off boys. Her past had been like her present - intolerable - and since she knew death was anything ut forgetfulness, she used the little energy left her for pondering color" (4).

"'Well, long enough to see Baby Suggs, anyway. Where is she?'
'Dead.'
'Aw no. When?'
'Eight years now. Almost nine.'
'Was it hard? I hope she didn't die hard.'
Sethe shook her head. 'Soft as cream. Being alive was the hard part'" (8).

"and it embarassed them and made them sad; that secretly they longed to die - to be quit of it - that sleep was more precious to them than any waking day" (20).

“They killed a boss so often and so completely they had to bring him back to life to pulp him one more time. Tasting hot mealcake among the pine trees, they beat it away. Singing love songs to Mr. Death, they smashed his head. More than the rest, they killed the flirt who folks called Life for leading them on. Making them think the next sunrise would be worth it; that another stroke of time would do it at last. Only when she was dead would they be safe” (pg 128).

“He laughs. A rippling sound like Sethe’s sons make when they tumble in hay or splash in rainwater. His feet are cooking; the cloth of his trousers smokes. He laughs. Something is funny. Paul D guesses what it is when Sixo interrupts his laughter to call out, ‘Seven-O! Seven-O!’ Smoky, stubborn fire. They shoot him to shut him up. Have to” (pg. 267).

“Such thoughts of mortality were not new to him (he was over seventy now), but they still had the power to annoy. As he drew closer to the old homestead, the place that continued to surface in his dreams, he was even more aware of the way time moved. Measured by the wars he had lived through but not fought in (against the Miami, the Spaniards, the Secessionists), it was slow” (pg. 307).

Like You'd Understand Anyway

"Here's what it's like to bear up under the burden of so much guilt: everywhere you drag yourself you leave a trail. Late at night, you gaze back and view an upsetting record of where you've been. At the medical center whre they brought my brotehrs, I stood banging my head against a corner of a crash cart. When one of the nurses saw me, I said, 'There, that's better. That kills the thoughts before they grow.'" (3).

Portrait of the Artist

"Perhaps that first hasty confession wrung from him by the fear of hell had not been good? Perhaps, concerned only for his imminent doom, heahad not had sincere sorrow for his sin?" (147).

Joyce suggests that is can be prudent to live for the end, or with the end in mind, but one should never exist in fear of the end.



"How foolish his aim had been! He had tried to build a breakwater of order and elegance against the sordid tide of life without him and to dam up, by rules of conduct and active interests and new filial relations, the powerful recurrence of the tide within him. Useless. From without as from within the water had flowed over his barriers: their tides began once more to jostle fiercely above the crumbled mole" (92).

When Stephen attempts to resist the joys of life because he fears the end (something which he believes will contain an ultimate judgement) he eventually can not maintain such an outlook. He realizes that life should be enjoyed without concern for death. Once again, Joyce tells us not to live in fear of the end.



"And remember, my dear boys, that we have been sent into this world for one thing and for one thing alone: to do God’s holy will and to save our immortal souls. All else is worthless" (104).

The idea that one must live life completely for God in order that one might save one's soul in the after life, is a central theme to the novel, but also one that Stephen chooses to reject because of the religious life's restrictions on his artistic ability.



"It was true. God was almighty. God could call him now, call him as he sat at his desk, before he had time to be conscious of the summons. God had called him… His brain was simmering and bubbling within the cracking tenement of the skull. Flames burst from his skull like a corolla, shrieking like voices: Hell! Hell! Hell! Hell!" (119).

Stephen, although skeptical about religious practice, still believes in an omnipotent God that has the power to bring about the end at any moment.