Cone Gatherers Character Quotes/Evidence Flashcards
Lady RC
without seeing them … had issued an order … that they were to be treated with sympathy.
… this is no time for playing Sir Galahad.
You see, I know that the little one is an evil person.
… she knew that somewhere, on her beloved promontory, Duror, with his face shattered and bloody, lay dead.
… as she wept pity, and purified hope, and joy, welled up in my heart.
Duror
… what Duror heard was a roaring within him, as if that tree of hatred and revulsion was being tossed by a gale.
Do you really, he thought, see this tree growing and spreading in my mind? And its fruit madness?
He was like a tree, still straight, still showing green leaves; but underground death was creeping along the roots.
… rushing upon the stricken deer and the frantic hunchback, he threw the latter off with furious force, and then, seizing the former’s head with one hand cut its throat savagely with the other.
Neil
We’re human beings just like them. We need space to live and breathe in.
To look after his brother, he had never got married, though once he had come very near it: that memory often revived to turn his heart melancholy.
The constant sight of the mansion house chimneys, reminding him of their hut, which to him remained a symbol of humiliation.
Calum
For Calum the tree-top was interest enough; in it he was as indigenous as squirrel or bird.
His face was chuckling to them and his sunburnt face was alert and beautiful with trust.
Calum shivered: he knew and feared death.
Calum, demoralised as always by hatred, had cowered against the hut, hiding his face.
Roderick
We didn’t treat them fairly.
Human beings are more important than dogs.
Duror was a barrier he could not pass.
Roderick knew that the struggle between good and evil never rested: in the world, and in every human being, it went on. The war was an enormous example. Good did not always win.
Calum’s Good Nature
“Calum flung himself upon the deer, clasped it round the neck, and tried to comfort it.”
“What about the rabbit, Neil?”
Calum’s connection with nature
Calum no longer was one of the beaters; he too was a deer hunted by remorseless men
Moaning and gasping he fled after them with no hope of saving them from slaughter but with the impulse to share it with them
“Calum flung himself upon the deer, clasped it round the neck, and tried to comfort it.”
Reasons to feel sympathy for Duror because his life will never be recovered
“You’re in danger too John, of being destroyed completely”
“If you’ve deserved mercy, John, you’ll get it.” Duror responds by saying “It’s too late”
Duror ends up killing himself - He gets some sense of relief
Lady RCs mental fragility
“Yet no matter, how she looked at it, whether from the point of view of conscientious objector or responsible landowner or practical Christian.”
“But she was too honest in her endeavour to be a Christian. She knew how hard it was for the rich and powerful to enter the kingdom of heaven”
Neil’s annoyance at his social class
“Who does the Lady think she is, that she orders us about like dogs? But if we were dogs, she’d treat us better than she does.
Duror has privileges over the cone gatherers
“What do you think Duror, as the expert?”
“You will do no such thing.” (When Duror suggests walking with his dogs)
“Get in. We’ve had dogs in the car before.”
Mistreating the social classes can be costly
“If she wants our help, let her come and ask for it.”
“She cannot one day treat us as lower than dogs, and next day order us to do her bidding.”
Duror changing his mind on Calum - his epiphany
‘the hunchback in some dreadful way had become associated with him in fact had become necessary to him.’
‘His going therefore must be a destruction, an agony, a crucifixion.’
‘For many years his life had been stunted, misshapen, obscene, and hideous; and this misbegotten creature was its personification’
Calum’s comfort in the trees
“For Calum the tree-top was interest enough; in it he was as indigenous as squirrel or bird.”
The word choice of ‘indigenous’ shows that Calum is at one with nature and this feels like home for him.
