It's a wonder they can sit down at all, and when they walk, nothing touches their legs under the billowing skirts, except their shifts and stockings. They are like swans, drifting along on unseen feet; or else like the jellyfish in the waters of the rocky harbour near our house, when I was little, before I ever made the long sad journey across the ocean. They were bell-shaped and ruffled, gracefully waving and lovely under the sea; but if they washed up on the beach and dried out in the sun there was nothing left of them. And that is what the ladies are like: mostly water.
by Margaret Atwood
(0 Reviews)

The quote reflects on the ethereal, almost otherworldly nature of women dressed in flowing garments. It compares them to swans gliding gracefully or jellyfish swimming effortlessly through the water. This imagery suggests a sense of beauty and fluidity, highlighting how little their environment seems to affect them, as if they are supported by something deeper and unseen.

However, there is a contrasting undertone in the analysis. The comment about jellyfish drying out on the beach serves as a metaphor for the vulnerability of these women, indicating that beneath their lovely exterior lies fragility and a dependence on the circumstances surrounding them. The observation captures the duality of beauty and vulnerability, suggesting that, like the jellyfish, women may lose their charm when stripped of their context and support.

Stats

Categories
Votes
0
Page views
0
Update
February 13, 2025

Rate the Quote

Add Comment & Review

User Reviews

Based on 0 reviews
5 Star
0
4 Star
0
3 Star
0
2 Star
0
1 Star
0
Add Comment & Review
We'll never share your email with anyone else.
More »

Other quotes in Alias Grace

More »

Popular quotes

Small towns are like metronomes; with the slightest flick, the beat changes.
by Mitch Albom
Look, if you say that science will eventually prove there is no God, on that I must differ. No matter how small they take it back, to a tadpole, to an atom, there is always something they can't explain, something that created it all at the end of the search. And no matter how far they try to go the other way – to extend life, play around with the genes, clone this, clone that, live to one hundred and fifty – at some point, life is over. And then what happens? When the life comes to an end? I shrugged. You see? He leaned back. He smiled. When you come to the end, that's where God begins.
by Mitch Albom
You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole.
by Mitch Albom
The nun said, I can forgive the language. I'm not sure I can forgive your making an obscene gesture at your mother. Ya gotta know her, Holland said. If you knew her, you'd give her the finger, too.
by John Sandford
There's lying," says Mum, fishing out the envelope she wrote the directions on from her handbag, "which is wrong, and there's creating the right impression, which is necessary.
by David Mitchell
But an ink brush, she thinks, is a skeleton key for a prisoner's mind.
by David Mitchell
Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.
by David Mitchell
Ain't you supposed to have peace when you die?'You have peace,' the old woman said, 'when you make it with yourself.
by Mitch Albom
My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?
by David Mitchell
You say you're 'depressed' - all i see is resilience. You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human.
by David Mitchell