How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Beatrice-Joanna closed her eyes. Almost at once a dream leaped on to her: a grey field under a thundery sky, cactus-like plants groaning and swaying, skeletal people collapsing with their black tongues hanging out, then herself involved—with some bulky male form that shut out the scene—in the act of copulation. Loud laughter broke out and she awoke fighting. (2.7.18)
Other passages in The Wanting Seed draw connections between human obsessions with sex and death. What do you think is the symbolic significance of the nightmare that Beatrice-Joanna has here?
Quote #5
One story in particular was so incredible that it cast doubt on the others. It was reported from Brodick on the Isle of Arran that a vast communal nocturnal gorge of man-flesh had been followed by a heterosexual orgy in the ruddy light of the fat-spitting fires and that, the morning after, the root known as salsify was seen sprouting from the pressed earth. That could not, by any manner of means or stretch of the organ of credulity, be believed. (3.5.3)
What's harder to believe in this passage: the cannibalistic feast, the heterosexual orgy, or the unexpected appearance of the food crop?
Quote #6
'A disgusting journey,' said Sergeant Image, with the strongly alveolated sibilants of his type. They had seen things in the ploughed fields, horrible things. 'Disgusting,' he repeated. 'We should have filled their buttocks with bullets.' (3.11.2)
Hold onto your butts! Although this passage doesn't give us a lot of detail, it's not too hard to connect the dots and figure out what Sergeant Image, Captain Loosley, and Young Oxenford have seen going on in the fields.