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Luisa Rey
Timothy Cavendish is the protagonist of “The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish,” a film that Sonmi~451 watches. He is in his 60s and runs a vanity publishing company that experiences a freak success after one of his authors, Dermot Hoggins, throws the critic Felix Finch off a roof and becomes a famous murderer. But Timothy soon becomes a victim of his own success when Dermot’s violent brothers demand more money on behalf of Dermot. In an attempt to escape the situation, Timothy makes the mistake of trusting his own brother, Denholme, and he ends up imprisoned in a nursing home called Aurora House. Stuck in Aurora House, Timothy struggles to convince the nurses he’s not senile and realizes that he’ll have to break out on its own. He hatches a plan with fellow nursing home residents Ernie Blacksmith and Veronica Costello, ultimately escaping Aurora House and reclaiming his old life. Timothy’s ordeal highlights how society neglects the sick and the elderly. His brute-force escape from the nursing home shows how it’s not always possible to navigate a bureaucracy, so sometimes the only option is to take direct action. He also symbolizes the necessity of facing own’s own mortality and the potential benefits of doing so, as his encounter with old age at the nursing home helps motivate him to return to his old life with renewed vigor.
Timothy Cavendish Quotes in Cloud Atlas
The Cloud Atlas quotes below are all either spoken by Timothy Cavendish or refer to Timothy Cavendish. 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:
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Chapter 2 Quotes
She plays with that birthmark in the hollow of my shoulder, the one you said resembles a comet—can’t abide the woman dabbling with my skin.
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Chapter 4 Quotes
I will not deny a nascent sense of a silver lining to this tragic turn. My Haymarket office suite housed ninety-five unsold shrink-wraps of Dermot Hoggins’s Knuckle Sandwich, impassioned memoir of Britain’s soon to be most famous murderer. Frank Sprat—my stalwart printer in Sevenoaks, to whom I owed so much money I had the poor man over a barrel—still had the plates and was ready to roll at a moment’s notice.
Hardcovers, ladies and gentlemen.
Fourteen pounds ninety-nine pence a shot.
A taste of honey!
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Ominous, no? I had seen One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest with an extraordinarily talentless but wealthy and widowed poetess whose collected works, Verses Wild & Wayward, I was annotating but who was less widowed than initially claimed, alas. “Look, I’m sure you’re a reasonable woman.” The oxymoron passed without comment. “So read my lips. I am not supposed to be here. I checked into Aurora House believing it to be a hotel.”
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Chapter 8 Quotes
“I wouldn’t have locked up Noakes and stolen a car if I’d known you couldn’t pick the lock!”
“Aye, exactly, you’re nesh, so you needed encouragement.”
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That is more or less it. Middle age is flown, but it is attitude, not years, that condemns one to the ranks of the Undead, or else proffers salvation. In the domain of the young there dwells many an Undead soul. They rush about so, their inner putrefaction is concealed for a few decades, that is all.
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Timothy Cavendish Character Timeline in Cloud Atlas
The timeline below shows where the character Timothy Cavendish appears in Cloud Atlas. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4
Narrator Timothy Cavendish describes a time a few summers ago when he was in his sixties and...
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Timothy says he got distracted and actually intended to start his story with Dermot “Duster” Hoggins....
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...who will later become famous for a book called Knuckle Sandwich, wants to talk to Timothy, who runs Cavendish Publishing, about the publicity campaign for his upcoming boo. He feels that...
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...him by the jacket and throwing him off the roof. Finch dies, twelve floors down. Timothy immediately sees the silver lining: Dermot is about to become a famous murderer, and Cavendish...
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Timothy hates flashbacks and other flourishes of postmodern literature, but he refuses to apologize for how...
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Timothy tries to rebrand his publishing house as a home for serious works, printing new business...
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Timothy goes to his publishing office and tries to come up with the 50,000 pounds. His...
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Denholme, Timothy’s brother, doesn’t seem happy to see him. He doesn’t believe Timothy’s claim that gangsters want...
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Timothy grudgingly goes to King’s Cross Station and books a ticket to Hull, all the while...
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Timothy gets off the train, looking at all the suburban homes in the town. He gets...
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Suddenly, a boy asks Timothy what he’s doing, startling him. Timothy explains he’s an old friend of Ursula’s. The boy...
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Timothy goes to a café and gets drunk while waiting for the next train. He makes...
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Timothy gets back on the train. It makes another unscheduled stop. Later, a brake issue at...
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The next morning, Timothy finds a woman looking through his things and scolds her. Her name is Mrs. Noakes,...
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Timothy protests to Mrs. Judd, a woman at reception, that he doesn’t belong at Aurora house....
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Timothy goes back to his room, plotting vengeance. Someone locks the door behind him. Around 11...
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Later that day at Aurora House, Timothy has a bland lunch. He realizes that he won’t get out of his situation by...
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Chapter 5
...50 minutes of The Ghastly Ordeal before pausing during an important scene when the protagonist, (Timothy Cavendish) has a stroke. Just then, Hae-Joo gets news that enforcers have stormed campus and...
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Chapter 7
...giant cross-legged figure carved out of rock who has a face that reminds her of Timothy Cavendish. They make their way to an old abbey that houses a colony of purebloods...
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Chapter 8
Timothy Cavendish wakes in a daze, finding himself connected to a feeding IV. He doesn’t have...
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Miserable in his confinement, Timothy tries to find some escapism by reading Half-Lives. He imagines himself publishing the book and...
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...Scottish man who finds ways to smuggle in alcohol, and he and Veronica both tolerate Timothy’s grumpiness. Ernie used to repair boilers and was a locksmith too. Timothy tells them about...
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Timothy devises his first escape plan. He sneaks over to the phone and calls his publishing...
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Later, during a breakfast, while Timothy is still reeling from Denholme’s death, Mrs. Noakes say she’s disappointed to announce that there...
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It’s the week of Christmas, and Ernie remains angry with Timothy, while Veronica has sympathy for Timothy but stays with Ernie. Timothy fantasizes about meeting the...
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Timothy dreams about seeing Ursula when he’s out. But he’s disappointed when he wakes up on...
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On Boxing Day, Timothy, Ernie, and Veronica finally all reconcile. Timothy puts aside his pride to apologize, and Ernie,...
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The 28th comes. Timothy sets the plan in motion by using a stolen cell phone to call Mr. Hotchkiss...
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...his mother and invites him in past reception, saying the doctor is busy. Ernie and Timothy get into the car, but Ernie realizes there’s no key—Mrs. Hotchkiss took the keys in....
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Timothy says he’ll distract their pursuers so that Ernie can get out and pick the lock...
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Timothy knows his way around, so he navigates with no problem. He, Ernie, and Veronica make...
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...Hotchkiss says something rude to them, and someone knocks his tooth out. Ernie, Veronica, and Timothy make an escape and drive away.
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Timothy, Ernie, and Veronica make it to Glasgow, where Ernie has Mr. Hotchkiss’s car scrapped. In...
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Timothy ponders his future. He figures that if Dermot can write a bestseller, maybe Timothy can...
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