i'm glad you say you're enjoying these asks because i've GOT to know your (and anyone else who might be reading this; i'm asking the whole class!!) opinion about what the hell that line about delphi is about. right after laurie literally lifts his hands from his eyes after remembering his boyhood dreams and is faced with the reality of the room, the war, their injuries:
"Life is cruel, he thought; leaving out war and all that wholesale stuff, human life is essentially cruel. Sometimes you can feel a smile. The Greeks felt it. Apollo Loxias at Delphi smiling in the smoke behind the oracle, and saying, “But I don’t mean what you mean.”"
is it about the irony of laurie's dream coming true in a way he didn't ever envision? he got what he dreamt of but not in the romantic idealistic way he dreamed of it. at the party he even gets to go along with ralph when he goes away, but the "quest" is to get supplies for sandy's tantrum after a queer party.
also this scene: "Laurie began to get up, turning himself into a sitting position and catching hold of the chair-arm to pull on. He sat there for a moment, his head beside Ralph’s knees, and this sharp sense of life’s cruelty trembling in him like an arrow that has just struck."
he's suddenly realizing his feelings for ralph? and he feels life's cruelty because of his love for andrew?
also completely way back in the book, but the scene where laurie is cleaning up the bathroom after sandy's suicide attempt and finds ralph's glove, pats it "kindly," and then leaves it, then lies to ralph and says he hasn't seen it... i can't help but feel like that's STRONG foreshadowing for ch.16 and his lie about the call. choosing compassion over the truth.
I had a vague memory of writing something about the delphic oracle reference and I'm just linking to it here as I think some of it is relevant and I went to remind myself, but I have to say, your interpretation about his dreams coming true resonated with me so much here! I've often thought that the moral of the story could be seen as 'never meet your heroes', or 'be careful what you wish for', but yes, I hadn't thought of it exactly in that way. I remember someone saying the party is like a descent into hell but it is a kind of twisted version of all Laurie's fantasies. I love that interpretation, thank you.
But picking up on that theme of getting what you want, but not in the way you wanted it, when I re-read my piece I remembered what happens next - Laurie goes back and kisses Andrew, then he has the erotic dream about Ralph which he can't talk to him about! So again, he is getting what he wished for but everything is misplaced.......
And I love your interpretation of the glove, that is a great example of Laurie protecting Ralph from his feelings of pity. Actually now I think about it, it's also an analogue to Andrew's complaint to Laurie, when he says 'you oughtn't to think of me as someone whose head has to be stuck in a bag'. Again, he decides for Andrew what to hide from him in the name of 'protection'. So interesting......