The Drowned World

by

J. G. Ballard

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Drowned World makes teaching easy.

Dr. Alan Bodkin Character Analysis

Dr. Bodkin is one of the senior biologists in the unit in London. At 65, he's one of the last people on Earth who remembers living in the cities that are now flooded, and he spends much of his free time paddling around alone and looking for remembered landmarks. He develops the theory of neuronics, which seeks to explain the disturbing dreams people experience by suggesting that people instinctively remember the entire evolution of the world. Now that the world is in a similar state that it was in during the Triassic period, humans subconsciously remember what the world was like at that point. He decides to stay behind in London with Kerans and Beatrice. When Strangeman arrives and drains London, Bodkin is at first awed by this feat and takes advantage of being able to revisit his memories on foot. However, he soon becomes disturbed by the possibility that Strangeman is going to try to return to the world to the way it was in the 20th century and tries to destroy one of the dams. Strangeman and his crew kill him before he succeeds.

Dr. Alan Bodkin Quotes in The Drowned World

The The Drowned World quotes below are all either spoken by Dr. Alan Bodkin or refer to Dr. Alan Bodkin. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Man vs. Nature Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

The biological mapping had become a pointless game, the new flora following exactly the emergent lines anticipated twenty years earlier, and he was sure that no one at Camp Byrd in Northern Greenland bothered to file his reports, let alone read them.

Related Characters: Dr. Robert Kerans, Dr. Alan Bodkin
Page Number: 19
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

Is it only the external landscape which is altering? How often recently most of us have had the feeling of déjà vu, of having seen all this before, in fact of remembering these swamps and lagoons all too well.

Related Characters: Dr. Alan Bodkin (speaker), Dr. Robert Kerans, Lieutenant Hardman
Page Number: 55
Explanation and Analysis:

A more important task than mapping the harbors and lagoons of the external landscape was to chart the ghostly deltas and luminous beaches of the submerged neuronic continents.

Related Characters: Dr. Robert Kerans, Dr. Alan Bodkin
Page Number: 58
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Nor had he tried to follow up any of Bodkin's or Riggs' oblique remarks about the dreams and their danger, almost as if he had known that he would soon be sharing them, and accepted them as an inevitable element of his life...

Related Characters: Dr. Robert Kerans, Dr. Alan Bodkin, Beatrice Dahl, Colonel Riggs
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:

Distantly in his ears he could hear the sun drumming over the sunken water. As he recovered from his first fears he realized that there was something soothing about its sounds, almost reassuring and encouraging like his own heartbeats.

Related Characters: Dr. Robert Kerans, Dr. Alan Bodkin
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

By and large, each of them would have to pursue his or her own pathway through the time jungles... Although they might see one another occasionally... their only true meeting ground would be in their dreams.

Related Characters: Dr. Robert Kerans, Dr. Alan Bodkin, Beatrice Dahl
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

"Dr. Bodkin, did you live in London as a child? You must have many sentimental memories to recapture, of the great palaces and museums." He added: "Or are the only memories you have pre-uterine ones?"

Related Characters: Strangeman (speaker), Dr. Robert Kerans, Dr. Alan Bodkin, Beatrice Dahl
Related Symbols: The Planetarium
Page Number: 109
Explanation and Analysis:

"The trouble with you people is that you've been here for thirty million years and your perspectives are all wrong. You miss so much of the transitory beauty of life. I'm fascinated by the immediate past--the treasures of the Triassic compare pretty unfavorably with those of the closing years of the Second Millennium."

Related Characters: Strangeman (speaker), Dr. Robert Kerans, Dr. Alan Bodkin, Beatrice Dahl
Page Number: 109
Explanation and Analysis:

Kerans managed to take his eyes off Strangeman's face and glanced at the looted relics.
"They're like bones," he said flatly.

Related Characters: Dr. Robert Kerans (speaker), Strangeman, Dr. Alan Bodkin, Beatrice Dahl, The Admiral
Page Number: 112
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

For some reason the womb-like image of the chamber was reinforced rather than diminished by the circular rows of seats, and Kerans heard the thudding in his ears uncertain whether he was listening to the dim subliminal requiem of his dreams.

Related Characters: Dr. Robert Kerans, Strangeman, Dr. Alan Bodkin, Beatrice Dahl
Related Symbols: The Planetarium
Page Number: 126
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

No longer the velvet mantle he remembered from his descent, it was no a fragmenting cloak of rotting organic forms, like the vestments of the grave. The once translucent threshold of the womb had vanished, its place taken by the gateway to a sewer.

Related Characters: Dr. Robert Kerans, Strangeman, Dr. Alan Bodkin, Beatrice Dahl
Related Symbols: The Planetarium
Page Number: 147
Explanation and Analysis:
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Dr. Alan Bodkin Quotes in The Drowned World

The The Drowned World quotes below are all either spoken by Dr. Alan Bodkin or refer to Dr. Alan Bodkin. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Man vs. Nature Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

The biological mapping had become a pointless game, the new flora following exactly the emergent lines anticipated twenty years earlier, and he was sure that no one at Camp Byrd in Northern Greenland bothered to file his reports, let alone read them.

Related Characters: Dr. Robert Kerans, Dr. Alan Bodkin
Page Number: 19
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

Is it only the external landscape which is altering? How often recently most of us have had the feeling of déjà vu, of having seen all this before, in fact of remembering these swamps and lagoons all too well.

Related Characters: Dr. Alan Bodkin (speaker), Dr. Robert Kerans, Lieutenant Hardman
Page Number: 55
Explanation and Analysis:

A more important task than mapping the harbors and lagoons of the external landscape was to chart the ghostly deltas and luminous beaches of the submerged neuronic continents.

Related Characters: Dr. Robert Kerans, Dr. Alan Bodkin
Page Number: 58
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Nor had he tried to follow up any of Bodkin's or Riggs' oblique remarks about the dreams and their danger, almost as if he had known that he would soon be sharing them, and accepted them as an inevitable element of his life...

Related Characters: Dr. Robert Kerans, Dr. Alan Bodkin, Beatrice Dahl, Colonel Riggs
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:

Distantly in his ears he could hear the sun drumming over the sunken water. As he recovered from his first fears he realized that there was something soothing about its sounds, almost reassuring and encouraging like his own heartbeats.

Related Characters: Dr. Robert Kerans, Dr. Alan Bodkin
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

By and large, each of them would have to pursue his or her own pathway through the time jungles... Although they might see one another occasionally... their only true meeting ground would be in their dreams.

Related Characters: Dr. Robert Kerans, Dr. Alan Bodkin, Beatrice Dahl
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

"Dr. Bodkin, did you live in London as a child? You must have many sentimental memories to recapture, of the great palaces and museums." He added: "Or are the only memories you have pre-uterine ones?"

Related Characters: Strangeman (speaker), Dr. Robert Kerans, Dr. Alan Bodkin, Beatrice Dahl
Related Symbols: The Planetarium
Page Number: 109
Explanation and Analysis:

"The trouble with you people is that you've been here for thirty million years and your perspectives are all wrong. You miss so much of the transitory beauty of life. I'm fascinated by the immediate past--the treasures of the Triassic compare pretty unfavorably with those of the closing years of the Second Millennium."

Related Characters: Strangeman (speaker), Dr. Robert Kerans, Dr. Alan Bodkin, Beatrice Dahl
Page Number: 109
Explanation and Analysis:

Kerans managed to take his eyes off Strangeman's face and glanced at the looted relics.
"They're like bones," he said flatly.

Related Characters: Dr. Robert Kerans (speaker), Strangeman, Dr. Alan Bodkin, Beatrice Dahl, The Admiral
Page Number: 112
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

For some reason the womb-like image of the chamber was reinforced rather than diminished by the circular rows of seats, and Kerans heard the thudding in his ears uncertain whether he was listening to the dim subliminal requiem of his dreams.

Related Characters: Dr. Robert Kerans, Strangeman, Dr. Alan Bodkin, Beatrice Dahl
Related Symbols: The Planetarium
Page Number: 126
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

No longer the velvet mantle he remembered from his descent, it was no a fragmenting cloak of rotting organic forms, like the vestments of the grave. The once translucent threshold of the womb had vanished, its place taken by the gateway to a sewer.

Related Characters: Dr. Robert Kerans, Strangeman, Dr. Alan Bodkin, Beatrice Dahl
Related Symbols: The Planetarium
Page Number: 147
Explanation and Analysis: