The ultimate test of what is really beneficial to workers or society is subsumed to the need to make a profit. 7.It occurred to Father one day that.... he was a Negro (p.134)

Despite the fact that identity might seem like something one is given at birth, the ways that society perceives one's color, ethnicity, and race are not always the same as one's personal sense of self.

8. It was the second of the frightened...provoked from her innocence (p.158)

The sense of a woman's innocence of sexuality is highlighted in this quotation, as the woman in question proceeds from a sense of early purity to awareness.

9. The theatre shook on its foundation and.... from the proscenium arch. (p. 171)

The proscenium arch is the gold, false arch that frames the stage and creates the illusion of theatrical space -- however, the false vision that is framed within the arch can still be profoundly...

Give him his automobile and hang him (p. 242)
This illustrates the paradox of American consumer culture, still at its beginning stages of the early 20th century setting of the novel. The life of the individual is less important than his car.

11. Besides, he added, I have repaid... As you will discover (p. 250)

So long as someone has repaid in financial terms, this quote suggests, it assumes that all debts, even emotional debts and the debts of life are thus repaid -- American commerce becomes part of human exchanges of feeling when injuries are committed.

12. The image was of a small boy.... brass headlamp of an automobile (p.267).

As Ford rendered human beings into machines on the assembly line, now human beings are reduced to decorations on top of the automobiles themselves, images of metal and brass on expensive machines.