How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
It was facing this vast hardness that the boy's mouth had become so bitter; because he felt that men were too weak to make any mark here, that the land wanted to be let alone, to preserve its own fierce strength, its peculiar, savage kind of beauty, its uninterrupted mournfulness. (1.1.18)
Whoa. We guess that's what you'd call "bitter." From the very start, Carl is disappointed in the Divide and in himself. In fact, disappointment is pretty much the defining element of his character.
Quote #2
The settlers sat about on the wooden sidewalks in the little town and told each other that the country was never meant for men to live in; the thing to do was to get back to Iowa, to Illinois, to any place that had been proved habitable. (1.4.1)
In the novel's beginning, most of the locals seem to share Carl's sense that the Divide isn't meant to be inhabited. Knowing this helps us get a sense of how really exceptional Alexandra is. She's basically the only one around who thinks the Divide is awesome.
Quote #3
"What a wonderful place you have made of this, Alexandra." He turned and looked back at the wide, map-like prospect of field and hedge and pasture. "I would never have believed it could be done. I'm disappointed in my own eye, in my imagination." (2.3.34)
Does Carl ever stop being disappointed? Sheesh. When Carl returns from the city and sees what Alexandra has managed to do with the supposedly unlivable Divide, he feels like a big ol' failure.
Quote #4
Carl dropped the end of his cigar softly among the castor beans and sighed. "Yes, I suppose I must see the old place. I'm cowardly about things that remind me of myself. It took courage to come at all, Alexandra. I wouldn't have, if I hadn't wanted to see you very, very much."
Alexandra looked at him with her calm, deliberate eyes. "Why do you dread things like that, Carl?" she asked earnestly. "Why are you dissatisfied with yourself?" (2.4.19-20)
"Wherever you go, there you are." Or so they say. Carl thought he could escape disappointment in himself by leaving the Divide. Now, he's right back where he always was. Alexandra, who has always tried to overcome her feelings of loneliness and disillusionment with hard work, doesn't get it.
Quote #5
"But you show for it yourself, Carl. I'd rather have had your freedom than my land." (2.4.22)
Up until this point in the novel, we've only known Alexandra to be a strong-willed, optimistic type. Now, we start to get a different picture. Clearly, beneath that steely exterior, she's having second thoughts about her commitment to staying on the Divide. She feels trapped.
Quote #6
Carl shook his head mournfully. "Freedom so often means that one isn't needed anywhere. Here you are an individual, you have a background of your own, you would be missed. But off there in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing. When one of us dies, they scarcely know where to bury him." (2.4.23)
The Divide might seem suffocating at times, but according to Carl, it beats being a nobody in the big city. He went from being disappointed in the Divide to being disappointed by the big city. Now, his biggest complaint seems to be his feeling of homelessness.
Quote #7
"We pay a high rent, too, though we pay differently. We grow hard and heavy here. We don't move lightly and easily as you do, and our minds get stiff. If the world were no wider than my cornfields, if there were not something beside this, I wouldn't feel that it was much worth while to work." (2.4.24)
Is there any good place to be? In the city, you're lonely and anonymous. On the Divide, you lose the freedom to explore a life of the mind. Meaninglessness and disappointment seems to be a possibility just about anywhere. So, where's the escape?
Quote #8
"As you will," said Alexandra wearily. "All at once, in a single day, I lose everything; and I do not know why. Emil, too, is going away." Carl was still studying John Bergson's face and Alexandra's eyes followed his. "Yes," she said, "if he could have seen all that would come of the task he gave me, he would have been sorry. I hope he does not see me now. I hope that he is among the old people of his blood and country, and that tidings do not reach him from the New World." (2.7.10)
Alexandra seems to have achieved what she and her father always wanted—a successful farm. But even for a practical and down-to-earth woman like Alexandra, that's just not enough. Her life disappoints her as long as she has no one to share it with.
Quote #9
When everything is done and over for one at twenty-three, it is pleasant to let the mind wander forth and follow a young adventurer who has life before him. (3.1.40)
Disappointment isn't just for Carl and Alexandra. Marie struggles with a feeling of disappointment in her marriage to Frank. Though she tries to remain as cheerful and upbeat as ever, the narrator clues us in here to her true feelings. She seems to admire Emil all the more because he isn't tied down.
Quote #10
Perhaps he got more satisfaction out of feeling himself abused than he would have got out of being loved. If he could once have made Marie thoroughly unhappy, he might have relented and raised her from the dust. But she has never humbled herself. (4.1.19)
Frank is basically a case study in disappointment. For him, though, it's not just a passing sentiment, but a way of life. His refusal to accept the love Marie has for him spells the end of any chance at a happy life.