How we cite our quotes: I cite by line number only in this module.
Quote #1
Till I have done with this new day,
Which now is painful to these eyes,
Which have not seen the sun so rise
For years—I cannot count them o'er, (lines 41-44)
The speaker has been banished from the world – even from seeing the sun. He can't even count the number of years it's been since he's seen the sun rise.
Quote #2
But yet I forced it on to cheer
Those relics of a home so dear. (lines 101-2)
In his exile in the dungeon of Chillon, the speaker thinks about his brothers as "relics" of his previous life in almost a religious way.
Quote #3
Because I could have smiled to see
The death that would have set me free (lines 124-5)
For a while, the speaker would gladly have met death in the dungeon, since it would have meant an end to his exile.
Quote #4
For I had buried one and all
Who loved me in a human shape; (lines 320-1)
The speaker is completely alone in the world – whether in prison or out of it, he has no family or loved ones left alive.
Quote #5
The whole earth would henceforth be
A wider prison unto me: (lines 322-3)
Because he's completely alone, the speaker thinks that the whole world would just be a bigger prison. So what's the point of ending his imprisonment? He'd feel just as exiled and alone in the wider world.
Quote #6
A small green isle, it seem'd no more,
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor,
But in it there were three tall trees, (lines 344-6)
The small island the speaker sees in the middle of Lake Geneva can be seen as a double of his own prison cell: it's the same size as his "dungeon floor," and the three trees that grow on it could represent himself and his two brothers.