“Everything [they’d] once taken for granted now seems open to question.”
After Keith tells Stephen that he suspects his mother as being a German spy, the two boys begin spying on her and following her every move. The boys then noted the people Keith’s mother meet with frequently and they began suspecting them as well as being spies. Stephen then uttered the words above, signaling how hard it became to him trusting everyone around after Keith’s revelation. The quote also has the purpose of highlighting how much imagination can affect our sense of reality and how it can shape our perception of the people around us.
"In the very marrow of his bones he understands that there’s something not quite right about him and his family, something that doesn’t quite fit (…).’’
From the beginning of the novel, Stephen makes it clear that he knew his place in society. Stephen was aware of how he was different from the rest of the world, especially from his friend Keith and as a result he adopted an attitude he believed to be suitable for his condition. Because of this, he always saw himself as a servant in comparison with his friend Keith and he saw himself as being inferior in general.
“It was always her. From the very beginning.”
Towards the end of the novel, it is revealed that the man Keith’s mother took care of was not a spy, but actually a British man, scared and who decided to hide rather than to risk and fight for his country. In the beginning, one of the characters hinted that maybe Keith’s mother was having an affair and the interaction between Stephen and the strange man confirmed this. The quote also has the purpose of showing just how much a child’s imagination can affect reality and how things can become distorted in time.
