How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #7
His picture—never really inspected—had been of clean-eyed young men and immaculate girls, all in academic robes and converging on a white temple on the crowd of a wooded hill in the evening. Their faces were shining and dedicated and their voices rose in chorus and it was never any time but evening […] Leland Stanford University was not like that. A formal square of brown sandstone blocks set down in a hayfield; a church with an Italian mosaic front; classrooms of varnished pine; and the great world of struggle and anger re-enacted in the rise and fall of fraternities. And those bright angels were youths in dirty corduroy trousers, some study-raddled and some learning the small vices of their fathers. (47.3.2)
Not to knock Stanford or anything, but it's not exactly heaven, and college students are about as far away from saints as you can get. No wonder Aron is miserable there. Later in the novel, Abra says to Cal that Aron had to have the story about his mother go the way he imagined it and only the way he imagined it. Same goes for the story he created about what college would be like. Rather than accepting or adapting to it, Aron just resents it for not being what he wanted.
Quote #8
He remembered that Abra had once suggested that they go to live on the ranch, and that became his dream. He remembered the great oaks and the clear living air, the clean sage-laced wind from the hills and the brown oak leaves scudding. He could see Abra there, standing under a tree, waiting for him to come in from his work. And it was evening. There, after work of course, he could live in purity and peace with the world, cut off by the little draw. (47.3.4)
Whoa—wait a second. When Abra first suggested that the two of them go live on the ranch, Aron was totally not down with the idea. But now that college hasn't turned out to be the heaven he thought it would be, he is making the ranch into his new heaven, complete with perfect trees and virtuous women. Seriously, compare his ideal vision of college with this ideal vision of the ranch—you'll notice that they are pretty much the same. Is Aron ever going to find a place like this? We know the answer, but Aron clearly doesn't.
Quote #9
"I want to see him get off the train," said Adam. He'll be changed. I want to see what change there is."
Lee said, "He's only been gone a couple of months. He can't be very changed, nor much older."
"He'll be changed. Experience will do that." (49.1.4-6)
As an older, wiser, more experienced man, Adam can still be pretty innocent. Here we see him oblivious to the fact that Aron is pretty resentful of him and probably doesn't want him to be at the train station cramping his style. In fact, what Adam is doing to Aron is pretty similar to what Adam did to Cathy: he is seeing what he wants to see, which is a mature, intelligent, devoted son. And no offense to Aron or anything, but he is none of those things.