September 20th Response

Just as about everyone else has chosen a quote and discussed its meaning and their response to it, I will do the same. The quote I have chosen was also the one that I said aloud in class, and I know a few other people may have already done it and may do it but I thought it was a very important passage from the reading.

"Always each of them had so much to say. Yet now that they were together they were silent." (McCullers 179)

McCullers goes on to mention how it was almost as though each person that Singer interacted with was a spoke in a wheel and Singer himself was the hub, or the center point. The meeting point. The most important part of a wheel. The part that has to be the strongest. Trust me, you can ride a bike missing a spoke or two, but without the hub, you have nothing.  This is the same in the novel. Everybody relies on Singer to always be there to listen and to help the characters through their hardships.  Singer is the middle of the wheel with many connections.  Back to the quote, however. When the spokes of a wheel are in the right place, they do not touch. So when each character is alone with Singer they can speak freely and have not a care in the world about any other problems.  If spokes touch though, or if two characters interact in the presence of Singer when they are used to just one-on-one with him, conflicts will occur.  If two of your spokes are touching each other, or in a place not natural to their comfort, there will be problems.  The wheel will start to spin out of balance, throwing everything off.  That is just with two spokes, you can only imagine what four would do.  When all four of them were in the room with Singer they were so far from their normal experience with Singer that they said nothing at all.  Singer was put under a great amount of stress and tension, getting pulled from all sides, just as the hub of a wheel is.