How we cite our quotes: (Part.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #4
As I now read this Foreword through I can see how meagerly it conveys me. How little perhaps can words convey except in the hands of a genius. (Bradley Pearson's Foreword: par. 15)
Since Bradley Pearson seems to believe that it's impossible to interpret and convey the full intricacy and complexity of human nature, human personalities, and human consciousness, his words in this passage seem pretty self-serving, despite the fact that they also appear to be humble and self-deprecating. After all, if Bradley intends to say something about the deep complexity of individual human beings, it stands to reason that his words would fail to convey that properly.
Quote #5
The most important thing a writer must learn to do is to tear up what he has written. Art is concerned not just primarily but absolutely with truth. It is another name for truth. The artist is learning a special language in which to reveal truth. If you write, write from the heart, yet carefully, objectively. Never pose. Write little things which you think are true. Then you may sometimes find that they are beautiful as well. (1.5.17)
In the first letter to Julian Baffin that Bradley Pearson writes in The Black Prince, Bradley equates art and truth. If we think of Bradley's story as an attempt to reveal truth, what specific truth would you say is his major concern? The truth about Arnold Baffin's death? The truth about his love for Julian? The true nature of artistic creation? Something else?
Quote #6
Oh, everything's changed so since even a little while ago. We can live in the open, there's nothing to be secretive about. I feel free, I've been set free, like Julian's balloon, I'm sailing up above the world and looking down at it at last, it's like a mystical experience. We don't have to keep secrets. Arnold has somehow forged a new situation. I shall have friends at last, real friends, I shall go about the world, I shall have you. And Arnold will accept it, he'll have to, he might even learn humility, Bradley, he's our slave. I've got my will back at last. We've become gods. Don't you see? (1.16.101)
For a short while in "The Black Prince," Rachel Baffin seems to believe that she can carry on an extramarital affair honestly, truthfully, and out in the open, without it causing any difficulties between herself and her husband. As she soon discovers, this isn't really the case.