How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
But if she wasn't nursing or trying to keep up with the bigger ones, she was by herself. (1.2.35)
Mick is the odd-one out. There's no doubt about that. But why is she by herself so much? Is it just a matter of personality? Or could it be because she's stuck between childhood and adulthood, taking care of her younger siblings while trying to keep up with her older ones?
Quote #2
"Some things you just naturally want to keep private. Not because they are bad, but because you just want them secret. (1.3.36)
Secrets secrets are no fun, unless you are a part of one. We've been taught that secrets are almost always bad because they isolate and exclude people. But here, Mick seems to think that secrets are a good thing. Why?
Quote #3
She wandered aimlessly up and down the hall and kept pushing back her rumpled hair with the palm of her hand. "Hell," she said aloud to herself. "Next to a real piano I sure would rather have some place to myself than anything I know." (1.3.124)
A piano and a place to herself. That's all Mick wants, and it's not exactly a tall order. Here, music is associated with alone time, which makes sense. When Mick is by herself, she can pay attention to the music in her head, maybe even write some. She needs that solitude to fuel her creativity. But it's hard to come by in a small house with a big family.
Quote #4
Mick tried to think of some good private place where she could go and be by herself and study about this music. But though she thought about this a long time she knew in the beginning that there was no good place. (1.3.132)
Well isn't this depressing? No matter how many wheels Mick turns in her head, she has bumped up against the cold hard truth: there is nowhere for her to go. Of course here she's just talking about studying music, but by the end of the novel, we realize that Mick has nowhere to go in life, either.
Quote #5
He liked to sit back and watch the actors talking and walking about on the screen. He never looked at the title of a picture before going into a movie, and no matter what was showing he watched each scene with equal interest. (2.7.7)
Singer is an observer, even when it comes to his own life. And the way he watches movies is how he acts with other people – he just takes it all in without really connecting with what he sees. The problem with being an observer is that it means Singer will always be just a bit removed from what's going on, a bit isolated from the world around him.
Quote #6
Doctor Copeland turned off the lights in his house and sat in the dark before the stove. But peace would not come to him. [...] Each word that Portia had said to him came back in a loud, hard way to his memory. He got up suddenly and turned on the light. (1.5.160)
You don't get much more alone than sitting in the dark in your empty house. Part of Copeland likes this – he thinks it will bring him peace. But it's lonely in the dark, and loneliness and peace are two very different things. For him, the isolation means he can't escape his horrible thoughts. No wonder he flips that switch.
Quote #7
Now she suddenly just knew that she knew about her Dad. He was lonesome and he was an old man. (2.1.16)
Poor Mr. Kelly. Though we don't see much of him, this brief glimpse tells us that he's probably one of the most lonely and depressed characters in the book. But it takes Mick a while to realize this. It's as if Mr. Kelly has been so lonesome for so long that no one even notices anymore.
Quote #8
If he stayed at home he restlessly walked the floor. He sat on the edge of the unmade bed and gnawed savagely at the broken, dirty ends of his fingernails. [...] The loneliness in him was so keen that he was filled with terror. (2.4.21)
This loneliness is scary business. Wait. Why? We can imagine loneliness being sad or depressing. But what about being alone is scary?
Quote #9
For something had happened in this year. He had been left in an alien land. Alone. He had opened his eyes and around him there was much he could not understand. He was bewildered. (2.7.19)
Though this section describes Singer, it totally fits all the characters. Singer has been living in a little cocoon for ages, but now, without Antonapoulos, he has to face a new, scary, totally strange world. He has lost his security blanket, and now he'll have to face everything alone.
Quote #10
Each evening the mute walked alone for hours in the street. [...] His agitation gave way gradually to exhaustion and there was a look about him of deep calm. (1.1.45)
Well that's one way to deal with loneliness. Singer has got it down: if you poop yourself out, you'll feel way too tired to bother with feeling lonesome.
Quote #11
Doctor Copeland jerked the cuff of his sleeve and cleared his throat. His pulse beat too fast and his throat was tight. Sitting in the corner of the room he felt isolated and angry and alone. (2.3.89)
Isolated. Angry. Alone. Yeah, we're gonna let this quote speak for itself.
Quote #12
And the riddle was still in him, so that he could not be tranquil. There was something not natural about it all – something like an ugly joke. When he thought of it he felt uneasy and in some unknown way afraid. [...]
The silence in the room was deep as the night itself. Biff stood transfixed, lost in its meditations. (3.4.14, 16)
Here comes that fear again. Something about being alone is scary to these characters, perhaps because they worry that they might always be alone. And since McCullers has chosen to end the novel with this scene, we can't but think that they totally will be.