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The Narrator
The person who interrupts the narrator is implied to be her husband (though a gender is never noted), given that the two are sitting alone in their living room smoking cigarettes after tea. He announces his intention to purchase a newspaper and complains about the snail on the wall—abruptly interrupting the narrator’s introspection and ending her musings on what the mark could be. He receives no other descriptive identification in the story, but the belated acknowledgement of his presence is significant as it marks the vast distances thoughts can travel from the reality one is present in; the narrator seems entirely alone and in her own world until this voice breaks through her reverie, reminding her—and the reader—that she has in fact been sitting next to another person all along.
Someone Quotes in The Mark on the Wall
The The Mark on the Wall quotes below are all either spoken by Someone or refer to Someone. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Mark on the Wall
Quotes
Even so, life isn’t done with; there are a million patient, watchful lives still for a tree, all over the world, in bedrooms, in ships, on the pavement, lining rooms, where men and women sit after tea, smoking cigarettes. It is full of peaceful thoughts, happy thoughts, this tree. I should like to take each one separately—but something is getting in the way. . . . Where was I? What has it all been about? A tree? A river? The Downs? Whitaker’s Almanack? The fields of asphodel? I can’t remember a thing. Everything’s moving, falling, slipping, vanishing.. . . There is a vast upheaval of matter.
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“I’m going out to buy a newspaper.”
“Yes?”
“Though it’s no good buying newspapers. . . . Nothing ever happens. Curse this war; God damn this war! . . . All the same, I don’t see why we should have a snail on our wall.”
Ah, the mark on the wall! It was a snail.
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Someone Quotes in The Mark on the Wall
The The Mark on the Wall quotes below are all either spoken by Someone or refer to Someone. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Mark on the Wall
Quotes
Even so, life isn’t done with; there are a million patient, watchful lives still for a tree, all over the world, in bedrooms, in ships, on the pavement, lining rooms, where men and women sit after tea, smoking cigarettes. It is full of peaceful thoughts, happy thoughts, this tree. I should like to take each one separately—but something is getting in the way. . . . Where was I? What has it all been about? A tree? A river? The Downs? Whitaker’s Almanack? The fields of asphodel? I can’t remember a thing. Everything’s moving, falling, slipping, vanishing.. . . There is a vast upheaval of matter.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“I’m going out to buy a newspaper.”
“Yes?”
“Though it’s no good buying newspapers. . . . Nothing ever happens. Curse this war; God damn this war! . . . All the same, I don’t see why we should have a snail on our wall.”
Ah, the mark on the wall! It was a snail.
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