This is what you know about someone you have to hate: he charges you with his crime and castigates himself in you.
Philip RothRead
It never occurred to him that now he was looking at his master, at the one person in all the world who held his fate right between her palms - me, in patched hand-me-downs and untrimmed hair and idiot smile - and that my hatred for him is pure and black and unforgiving. And that I don't believe in God, but if I did, if I did, it would be the God of Moses, angry and demanding and OUT FOR REVENGE.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the complex emotions of hatred and power dynamics in relationships.
In this quote, the narrator confronts the realization of the master-servant relationship, wherein one individual possesses the ultimate control over another's fate. The speaker grapples with intense feelings of hatred, underscoring the emotional turbulence caused by power disparities, while simultaneously expressing a profound rejection of traditional beliefs, suggesting that if there were a deity, it would embody wrath and retribution, highlighting the darkness within human connections.
Themes
RelationshipsHatredPowerControlFate
In practice
Example use cases
In a literary discussion about the complexities of character relationships.
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