I'm a cloud, congealed around acentral object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am andglows red within its translucent wrapping.
Her true identity, that is, what differentiates her from other women is "cloud" like now, and what is more real is her central object, her womb, her fertility. Much more real than her entirety.
Also symbolizes the way men pick women apart into components rather than as a whole.
Theywere paintings about boredom. But maybe boredom is erotic, when women doit, for men.
This here is what signifies what is wrong with men's perceptions of women. The "long parentheses of nothing", unfilled time, is erotic of women, being devoid of life, to men. Men have always been this way.
Alone at last, I think. The fact is that I don't want to be alone with him,not on a bed. I'd rather have Serena there too. I'd rather play Scrabble
Irony in the "Alone at last", as she really hates it. She'd rather have Serena there, in all hypocrisy of her misery, she'd rather go through the ceremony -- in the end none is best, men are men, any sort of rape is uncomfortable for her. The men have not changed.
havenot been the first then.
She then knows she is the outside woman. She is the outside woman of the outside woman. She is just one of many pawns to complete the Commander's incompleteness temporarily
"What would you like?" he says, still with that lightness, as if it's amoney transaction merely, and a minor one at that: candy, cigarettes."Besides hand lotion, you mean," I say."Besides hand lotion," he agrees."I would like..." I say. "I would like to know.
This shows the disconnect between the understanding of the severity of the situation. He is still playing with her when she is in fear of her own death, as if it is a simple and equal transaction.
y arms around him.It's only a job, he said, trying to soothe me.
Men don't understand, he is patronising her in the way that a job is not just a job but a sense of power, of individuality and a duty, which Serena Joy keeps trying to find in her knitting and in her garden.