quotes on family Flashcards
quote on family (Mr Sillerton Jackson)
[Mr. Sillerton Jackson] knew all the ramifications of New York’s cousinships; […], but could also enumerate the leading characteristics of each family […] (chapter 1)
quote on family (family support)
“As long as a member of a well-known family is backed up by that family it should be considered— final.” (chapter 7)
quote on family- wild animal (family responsibility)
Archer, when the afternoon’s round was over, parted from his betrothed with the feeling that he had been shown off like a wild animal cunningly trapped. (chapter 9)
quote on family (family as a institution)
‘The mere idea of a woman’s appealing to her family to screen her husband’s business honor was inadmissible, since it was the one thing that the Family, as an institution, could not do.’ (chapter 27)
Huh. There’s an interesting contrast between Madame Olenska’s situation and Regina Beaufort’s. Remember when the van der Luydens came to Ellen’s defense and threw her that party? Blood is thicker than water, but cash money is the thickest substance known to man.
quote on family (seeing Mm Olenska away)
‘There were certain things that had to be done, and if done at all, done handsomely and thoroughly; and one of these, in the old New York code, was the tribal rally around a kinswoman about to be eliminated from the tribe.’ (chapter 33)
Madame Olenska’s going away party is described as a “tribal” ritual, even though the ritual described is elimination. Everything should be done in the best of taste, even the 1870s equivalent of sending someone to sleep with the fishes.
quote on family (family rallying)
[…] he understood that, by means as yet unknown to him, the separation between himself and the partner of his guilt had been achieved, and that now the whole tribe had rallied about his wife on the tacit assumption that nobody knew anything […] (chapter 33)
the family acts as a unit to protect itself
quote on family (duty)
‘He had married (as most young men did) because he had met a perfectly charming girl […] and she had represented peace, stability, comradeship, and the steadying sense of an unescapable duty.’ (chapter 21)
There’s nothing romantic about Archer’s feelings for May, unless a “steadying sense of an unescapable duty” is your cup of tea. May makes a good wife, not a lover.
