How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
And by the time I finally did get around to screwing a woman of twenty-eight, it was my wife, and I was thirty-two and already married to her, and that was not what I had been daydreaming about at all. (3.67)
Slocum's dreams are shattered by the reality that sex is much different as a married adult than he imagined it being when he was a youngster. Why do you think sex is so unfulfilling for Slocum in his married life? Is it repetitious? Is it because Slocum and his wife don't actually have a real connection, so it's just a physical act they do sometimes?
Quote #5
That's the kind of faithful husband I am. Sometimes when I'm in bed with another girl in the city or out of town and find I'm already sorry I started, I close my eyes and pretend I'm f***ing my wife. Such fidelity. My wife should be honored to learn she rises in my thoughts on such occasions when we are apart, but I don't think I'll tell her. She might not like it as much as I do. (5.83)
Sex is meaningless for Slocum, just another routine act, whether he's with his wife or with strange women. It seems like he wants it to be meaningful; it just isn't. Perhaps one of the reasons is that he doesn't have a real connection with any of these women. That's not entirely his fault—it doesn't seem like anyone in this novel has a real connection with anyone else.
Quote #6
I think I can remember having sneaky, scary, tinglings in my tiny cock much earlier as I sat or hovered near my mother in her bedroom and watched her dressing or removing her street clothes to drape herself into one of her housecoats that always hung shapeless and looked faded. (5.89)
Oedipus complex much? Slocum has Freudian sentiments that stem from watching his own mother undress. His own mother's image does creep up an awful lot in his discussions of sex… Hmm, perhaps he has some unrequited guilt he needs to address? After all, his mother died crying for her mother, and Slocum supposes he'll die crying for his own.