How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
'New York City must be Heaven,' said Mengel.
'It might well be for you,' I said. 'It was hell for me—or not Hell, something worse than Hell.'
'What could be worse than Hell?' he said.
'Purgatory,' I said. (5.56-59)
In Catholicism, purgatory is both a holding cell and a training ground. It's the place you go when you weren't good enough to get into heaven but you weren't bad enough to get sent to hell. After purgatory, you may get up to heaven, you may actually get sent to hell, or you might just hang out forever. It's depends on your soul's journey and if you can work past your sins. For Campbell, his symbolic purgatory is a time and place to stew on his regrets and guilt. For fifteen years.
Quote #2
My Helga believed I meant the things I said about the races of man and the machines of history, and I was grateful. No matter what I was really, no matter what I really meant, uncritical love was what I needed—and my Helga was the angel who gave it to me. (10.10)
Helga's love is described as what's promised in Christianity as the unconditional love from God. Just as Helga replaced Campbell's statehood in their "nation of two," she also acts as his holy lover who gives of herself unquestioningly.
Reading against the grain, we already know that Helga and Campbell don't really talk about politics, and they both act like good little Nazis. We think Campbell might not want to look at the fact that Helga may really have believed in all the things he pretended to believe in. Too dark? Did we pull a Resi and ruin the memory of their love? Sorry not sorry.
Quote #3
There was one pleasant thing about my ratty attic: the back window of it overlooked a little private park, a little Eden formed by joined back yards. That park, that Eden, was walled off from the streets by houses on all sides.
It was big enough for children to play hide-and-seek in.
I often heard a cry from that little Eden, a child's cry that never failed to make me stop and listen. It was the sweetly mournful cry that meant a game of hide-and-seek was over, that those still hiding were to come out of hiding, that it was time to go home.
The cry was this: 'Olly-olly-ox-in-free.'
And I, hiding from many people who might want to hurt or kill me, often longed for someone to give that cry for me, to end my endless game of hide-and-seek with a sweet and mournful—
'Olly-olly-ox-in-free.' (6.3-8)
We start out here with an allusion to the Garden of Eden. It's fitting that kids are playing in it, since they're supposed to be innocent and good. If we extend the metaphor, Campbell is looking at Eden longingly from purgatory. It's a world he can't access, and he's forced to remain in gloomy hiding as a result of his actions.