How we cite our quotes: (Part.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Name. He made a reaching, a flash of demand, and it returned to him carrying what might be called a definition. [...] "Name" is the single thing which is me and what I have done and been and learned.
It was all there, waiting for that single symbol, a name. All the wandering, the hunger, the loss, the thing which is worse than loss, called back. There was a dim and subtle awareness that even here, with the Prodds, he was not a something, but a substitute for something.
All alone.
He tried to say it [...] the farmer strained to receive what he was trying to convey [...] "Lone?" said Prodd.
It could be seen that the syllable meant something to Prodd, something like the codification he offered, though far less.
But it would do. (1.11.4-12)
Yes, this is one part of the novel we keep coming back to. Lone considers his name an exact tool of characterization. His loneliness is the gravity that draws the gestalt together. No wonder the book starts with him on page numero uno.
Quote #2
"Ask Baby what kind of people are all the time trying to find out what they are and what they belong to."
"He says, every kind."
"What kind," Lone whispered, "am I, then?"
A full minute later he yelled, "What kind?"
"Shut up awhile. He doesn't have a way to say it . . . uh . . . Here. He says he is a figure-outer brain and I am a body and the twins are arms and legs and you are the head. He says the 'I' is all of us."
"I belong. I belong. Part of you, part of you and you too."
"The head, silly."
Lone thought his heart was going to burst. He looked at them all, every one: arms to flex and reach, a body to care and repair, a brainless but faultless computer and—the head to direct it. (1.29.30-37)
Wait, is this Anthem territory? The I is all of us? Well, as the novel says, it is one thing for everyone to be an identical arm in a group, but for the gestalt, the individuals play unique roles. They retain their identities.
Quote #3
So it was that Lone came to know himself; and like the handful of people who have done so before him he found, at this pinnacle, the rugged foot of a mountain.
In other words, it is rare for people to fully understand their own identities, and those who manage to do so come to understand their own limitations. This isn't the most exciting pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but it's a functional and rewarding one nonetheless.
Quote #4
I did things myself. I cut wood for the fire and I put up more shelves, and then I'd go swimming with Janie and the twins sometimes. And I talked to Lone. I didn't do a thing that the others couldn't do, but they all did things I couldn't do. I was mad, mad all the time about that. But I wouldn't of known what to do with myself if I wasn't mad all the time about something or other. (1.4.3)
Sounds like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Surrounded by people with paranormal talents, Gerry feels angry that he lacks one. He wants his identity to be that of someone special. Little does he know…
Quote #5
Then he asked, "What about this? You got a radio station, you got four-five receivers, each receiver is fixed up to make something different happen, like one digs and one flies and one makes noise, but each one takes orders from the one place. And each one has its own power and its own thing to do, but they are all apart, Now: is there life like that, instead of radio?"
"Where each organism is part of the whole, but separated? I don't think so . . . unless you mean social organizations, like a team or perhaps a gang of men working, all taking orders from the same boss."
"No," he said immediately, "not like that. Like one single animal." (2.11.41-43)
Radio was still a pretty cool technology in 1953, which probably explains why Sturgeon took so much time to describe it. This is one analogy for the gestalt's identity, but Lone specifies he means the parts would constitute a single life form. It's not quite so that the gestalt parts take orders, however; after all, Janie splits from Gerry in Part 3. Good thing she didn't lose track of her own identity.
Quote #6
He cursed. "Damn mishmash inside you. Thirty-three years old—what you want to live like that for? [...] All by yourself for ten years now 'cept for someone to do your work. Nobody else." (2.12.26-28)
Um, rude. Lone perceives that Alicia Kew has a confused identity. She's stuck between the Alicia who wants to dance and the Miss Kew who wants prudish rules. Unlike the gestalt, she can't successfully share her emotions. We blame her dad.
Quote #7
"You talk about occlusions! I couldn't get past the 'Baby is three' thing because in it lay the clues to what I really am. I couldn't find that out because I was afraid to remember that I was two things—Miss Kew's little boy, and something a hell of a lot bigger. I couldn't be both, and I wouldn't release either one."
He said, with his eyes on his pipe, "Now you can?"
"I have." (2.14.12-14)
Sometimes you have to pick who you want to be. Gerry picks his identity as the head of the gestalt over his identity as Miss Kew's child, which is probably the better choice of the two.
Quote #8
Who am I to make positive conclusions about morality, and codes to serve all of humanity?
Why—I am the son of a doctor, a man who chose to serve mankind, and who was positive that this was right. And he tried to make me serve in the same way, because it was the only rightness he was sure of. And for this I have hated him all my life . . . I see now, Dad, I see! (3.16-54-55)
By coming to terms with what he thinks of as his father's forceful instruction, Hip finds enough of a sense of self confidence to devise an ethos for the gestalt.
Quote #9
But yes, yes . . . multiplicity is our first characteristic; unity our second. As your parts know they are parts of you, so must you know that we are parts of humanity. [...] We are humanity! (3.21.20-24)
It's not every day that you end up in telepathic communication with humanity. But when Gerry does, Homo Gestalt tells him its identity: one that prioritizes multiplicity or diversity over unity, but still considers both important. Yet they all join into one life form, identified here as humanity.