How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Oh. She's recovering very quickly, I think, all things considered. She took a very nasty knock, of course, over that Catchpole fellow, and all the unfortunate business afterwards." (1.12)
At the beginning of the novel, we learn that Margaret Peel's had a rough breakup with a guy named Catchpole. We don't know yet that she attempted suicide; but the fact that she's staying with the Welches' while she "recovers" definitely suggests that she's unstable in some way. Are we meant to think that an emotional breakdown is an understandable reaction to getting dumped by a boyfriend?
Quote #2
His first qualms had dated from then, but before that and for some time after he'd thought how much simpler this kind of honesty and straightforwardness made the awful business of getting on with women. (1.18)
Margaret's direct way of talking can make Jim uncomfortable at times, since she's always asking him where they stand in terms of boyfriend and girlfriend. But Jim has to admit that he prefers this kind of directness to the usual game-playing of the whole relationship thing. Jim generally thinks about relationships with women as an "awful business." Partly that's because of his own awkwardness with women, but it's also because he sees women as impossible—well, very difficult—to deal with in general.
Quote #3
That had been, as near as he could remember, on the morning before the evening when Margaret had tried to kill herself with sleeping-pills. (1.50)
Before this point, we know that Margaret's had a really bad breakup, but we had no idea that she actually attempted suicide. So not only is Margaret emotionally unstable, but it's actually worse than that; later on, we learn that this was all an act on Margaret's part. She's not depressed, she's a manipulator.
Quote #4
In a few seconds Dixon had noticed all he needed to notice about this girl: the combination of fair hair, straight and cut short, with brown eyes and no lipstick, the strict set of the mouth and the square shoulders, the large breasts and narrow waist, the premeditated simplicity of the wine-coloured corduroy skirt and the unornamented white linen blouse. (4.13)
Really? Looks are "all he needed to notice" about Christine? Maybe this sentence tells us everything that's worth noticing about Jim, rather than Christine.
Quote #5
"Pity she's so refained, though." Margaret hesitated, then decided to gloss the epithet. "I don't like women of that age who try to act the gracious lady. Bit of a prig, too." (4.62)
Here, Margaret's criticizing Christine after she sees how Jim's looking at her. Kind of a stereotyped "catty" thing to say about a rival for your boyfriend's affections.
Quote #6
Dixon felt sad: he realized for the first time that it was really unlikely that [Christine] would come to the Ball, a good deal more unlikely than she had any reason to think, and that it was correspondingly unlikely that he'd ever see her again. It was nasty to think that the deciding factors would be the strength and nature of Bertrand's ambitions, sexual and financial-social. (9.62)
Poor Christine. She's at the mercy of Bertrand's idea of whether it would be more advantageous for him to take her or Carol to the Summer Ball. We'll give Amis some credit here for recognizing that the power that a man could have over the women in his life could be pretty unfair.
Quote #7
Dixon wanted to laugh at this. It always amused him to hear girls (men never did it) refer to "Uncle" or "Daddy", and so on, as if there were only one uncle or daddy in the world, or as if this particular uncle or daddy were the uncle or daddy of all those present. (4.117)
Okay, okay—not the end of the world, but still…
Quote #8
All the same, what messes these women got themselves into over nothing. Men got themselves into messes, too, and ones that weren't so easily got out of, but their messes arose from attempts to satisfy real and simple needs. (11.31)
Real and simple needs, eh? Like the need for alcohol?
Quote #9
"Hysterics, eh?" Atkinson said, and slapped Margaret on the face several times, very hard, Dixon thought. (16.30)
We hardly know where to begin with this one. Bill doesn't really know Margaret or the details of the situation, so for all he knows she's having a seizure. He just assumes it's "hysterics." His casual tone about it seems to say—"Oh, those women, they always do this." We know that Bill's an aggressive guy. So we could argue that Amis is just being funny here, because he has Jim comment that this happened just like it happens in the movies.
Quote #10
Then he realized that Christine must, unconsciously, be quoting her boyfriend, or some horrible book lent by her boyfriend […]. It was queer how much colour women seemed to absorb from their men-friends, or even from the man they were with for the time being. That was only bad when the man in question was bad; it was good when the man was good. (14.80)
How about this option—a woman can think for herself?
Quote #11
More than ever he felt secure; here, he was able to fulfill his role. (14.130)
We can't help but think that Jim's behavior in the taxi with Christine has a kind of patronizing quality to it. After she pours her heart out to him about her problems with men and her lack of self-confidence, he delivers a long lecture, really uncharacteristic of him, about life and love. He feels pretty good about himself after he's finished and Christine falls asleep on his shoulder.
His "role", as far as we can tell, had been to set Christine straight about how she should think about love and about her relationship with Bertrand. We think the entire taxi conversation has a condescending quality. It reminds us of what Jim said earlier about women being easily "coloured" by the men they spend time with, and that it was OK as long as the men were good men. After this conversation, Christine becomes compliant and receptive to Jim's romantic advances. Christine is treated as an impressionable child in this novel. It may seem that she finally throws off her domination by Bertrand, but really she just transfers it to Jim.
Quote #12
Dixon smiled uncertainly. What a pity it was, he thought, that she wasn't better looking, that she didn't read the articles in the three-halfpenny press that told you which colour lipstick went with which natural colouring. With twenty percent more of what she lacked in these ways, she'd never run into any of her appalling difficulties […]. (16.62)
Jim expresses the opinion that in order to be happy, a woman has to make the most of her appearance. Is he being sexist or just realistic? Maybe this was truer in the 1950s than it is today, but we still think it puts the burden on the woman. He could have said that the world needed more men who could see past a woman's appearance.