Dissatisfaction
Nicholas could ignore “the mass-produced middle-class boys” he had to teach; sure, it was bad but still bearable. What he couldn’t stand was “the claustrophobic little town,” that was “a nightmare.” “But the really intolerable thing” was “the common room.” “Boredom, the numbing annual predictability of life” hung over the staff “like a cloud.” It was “real boredom,” not Nicholas’ “modish ennui.” It seemed that the place was filled with hatred. One had “sort of vertigo, a glimpse of a bottomless pit of human futility.” This imagery evokes a strong feeling of dissatisfaction and even apathy.
A heart-throb
Nicholas wasn’t “ugly”; and “even more important”, he had his “loneliness”, which, “as every cad knew”, was “a deadly weapon with women.” His main “technique” was “to make a show of unpredictability, cynicism and indifference.” “Like a conjurer with his white rabbit,” that young man “produced the solitary heart.” Even though he claimed not to “collect” conquests, Nicholas found his “sexual success” and “the apparently ephemeral nature of love” equally “pleasing.” It was like “being good at golf”, but “despising the game.” This imagery evokes a feeling of revulsion. Nicholas proves to be a terrible cynic who doesn’t care about feelings of others. He is terribly self-centered.
Flawless but cruel beauty
Nicholas’ life on the island was terribly dull. The only one thing that didn’t fail to amaze him was nature. Near Christmas “the weather became wild and cold.” “Enormous seas” of “pounding Antwerp blue” roared “on the shingle of the school beaches.” The man’s breath got caught every time he looked at “magnificent white shoulders” of the mountains that stood “west and north across the angry weather.” Yet “in the end” that “unflawed natural world” became “intimidating.” Nicholas seemed “to have no place in it.” He could not use it and “was not made for it.” This imagery evokes a feeling of terrible and destructive loneliness.
