How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
He went through the locker-room curtains. Two men wrapped in towels were playing Ping-pong. They were awkward and the ball bounded high. The Negro in the toilet was shining shoes. He did not know Dr. Adler by name, and Wilhelm descended to the massage room. (5.13)
The only Black man we meet in the Seize the Day is nameless, and he shines shoes in the bathroom of a hotel run by Europeans, where every resident seems to be white. What does this suggest about the racial hierarchies in the America the novel depicts?
Quote #8
On Broadway it was still bright afternoon and the gassy air was almost motionless under the leaden spokes of sunlight, and sawdust footprints lay about the doorways of butcher shops and fruit stores. And the great, great crowd, the inexhaustible current of millions of every race and kind pouring out, pressing round, of every age, of every genius, possessors of every human secret [. . .] (7.89)
There's that gassy air again. But let's look at the crowd in this passage. Is this a positive depiction of the great "body" of humankind, or does the novel's narrator give this description negative connotations?
Quote #9
The sidewalks were wider than any causeway; the street itself was immense, and it quaked and gleamed and it seemed to Wilhelm to throb at the last limit of endurance. And although the sunlight appeared like a broad tissue, its actual weight made him feel like a drunkard. (7.89)
Okay, so it's hot, and the asphalt on the enormous street is soaking up the sunlight and radiating its heat right back. That's what's happening physically here, but what's happening emotionally? What do these sensations of throbbing heat have to do with Wilhelm's frame of mind? How does his view of the city give us insight into his emotions?