The Way We Live Now

“[T]here’s something morbid I’m getting used to, getting excited by, this must be like what people felt in London during the Blitz.”

In a moment of honesty, Ellen describes what it’s like to live through a prolonged crisis. Her life is impacted by a pervasive threat, but she cannot fathom that she will be personally impacted. Regardless of the actual risk, she believes she is on the periphery of danger, and she is excited by the proximity. Her response reflects the concept of Illness as a Metaphor.

“[I]t wasn’t like the old days, as Kate pointed out to Aileen, they’re not even segregated in the hospital anymore, as Hilda observed, there’s nothing on the door of his room warning visitors of the possibility of contagion, as there was a few years ago.”

This quote offers important information to the reader and establishes the setting of the story. Fear of contagion leads to the quarantining of infected patients and limited physical and social contact, both in the hospital and at home. The tone of the quote is significant in showing how time seems to move differently during periods of stress and anxiety; AIDS was first identified and categorized in 1981, so the “old days” can be no more than five years before the story.

“[T]hey didn’t, the doctors, really have any hope.”

By cordoning off the identity of the speakers, the quote tries to suggest it is the doctors—not the friends—who have no hope. However, the pervasive anxiety of the quote and the paragraph it concludes suggests the friends themselves are the ones growing hopeless.

“Who else has keys, Tanya inquired, I was thinking somebody might drop by tomorrow [...]”

Tanya seems to be asking an innocent question, but the context of the story suggests something more. Giving someone the keys to his house is an act of intimacy, trust, and closeness; asking who else has keys to the penthouse is a way of asking who else may have been exposed to the disease or who may have given it to the protagonist.

“[H]is illness sticks us all in the same glue. [...] and, whatever the jealousies and grievances from the past that have made us wary and cranky with each other, when something like this happens [...] you understand what’s really important.”

The friends come together to support the protagonist through his illness, putting aside disagreements and feuds. But this also creates a stifling bond that prevents them from airing their grievances and finding resolutions.

“Oh, he was one of those, Aileen said. A coward. Like me.”

Although Aileen is shamed for not visiting the protagonist as often as the other friends, she learns that he also avoided the hospital rooms of previously-diagnosed acquaintances. This use of juxtaposition is used to show that discomfort with the terminally ill is universal.

“[F]or me his getting it has quite demystified the disease.”

This flippant response from Jan reflects The Spectacle of Tragedy and disease, and the selfishness of common responses to it. Jan doesn’t empathize with her friend or reflect on the tragedy of living with AIDS but positively remarks that having a friend diagnosed with it has normalized the epidemic for her.

“It’s not the same for you, Quentin insisted, it’s not the same for you as it is for me or Lewis or Frank or Paolo or Max, I’m more and more frightened, and I have every reason to be.”

This quote is essential in developing characters and establishing conflict. Quentin is giving voice to the social divide that was previously only implied, and he acknowledges that men who have sex with men are at an increased risk over women who have sex with men, or men who have sex with women only. He asserts that his experience as a gay or bisexual man—and that of Lewis, Frank, Paolo, and Max—is fundamentally different from that of the other characters in the story. Even as other characters become more comfortable with the epidemic, the fear continues to grow for those at greatest risk of exposure.

“[A]ren’t we getting at least as much out of this as he is.”

This honest reflection recognizes that the efforts of the protagonist’s friends aren’t entirely selfless. While they may be inspired by a sense of caring or charity, they are also benefitting socially, emotionally, and intellectually from the experience of being close to someone who was diagnosed with this relatively new disease.

“Frank, Frank, he has every reason to be upset, he’s dying, and Frank said, said according to Quentin, oh, I don’t like to think about it that way.”

When Frank complains about an AIDS patient’s anger and frustration, he illustrates the impact of The Spectacle of Tragedy. Frank approaches the epidemic as a subject he can consume and regulate, rather than as a real tragedy experienced by another human being.

“[W]hatever happened it was over, the way he had lived until now.”

When Greg voices concerns that if patients survive, they’ll continue to spread the infection, Kate dismisses the possibility and argues that the protagonist’s sex life is over. A hyperawareness of the AIDS epidemic defines the way the characters now live, and the freedom that defined their previous relationships is over.

“I can’t, I just can’t, sex is too important to me, always has been (he started talking like that, according to Victor, after Nora left him), and if I get it, well, I get it.”

Kate would recall this conversation after the protagonist’s diagnosis. While she performs the role of peacemaker throughout the story, this memory reveals that she holds onto anger and blames the protagonist’s choices for his illness.

“[H]e himself had done something to loosen the bonds of love that united the friends around him, by seeming to take them all for granted.”

Previously, the friends named the protagonist as the glue that held them together and inspired them to present a united front. But as time continues and life carries on, they begin to resent his influence on their relationships and blame him explicitly for their bickering and personal conflicts.