Go Down, Moses Race Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.[Part].Section.Paragraph)

Quote #1

Afterward, Uncle Buck admitted that it was his own mistake, that he had forgotten when even a little child should have known: not to ever stand right in front of or right behind a n***** when you scare him; but to always stand to one side of him. Uncle Buck forgot that. (1.2.52)

The narrator here is basically saying that black men are irrational, superstitious, and easily startled, so stand back and don't get knocked down like Buck. Turl's filling the stereotype role of the "c***" Negro.

Quote #2

"How to God," he said, "can a black man ask a white man to please not lay down with his black wife? And even if he could ask it, how to God can the white man promise he wont?" (2.1.2.51)

Zack and Lucas grew up together, but Lucas can't imagine approaching him as an equal, even when it comes to something as important as his marriage.

Quote #3

Then one day the old curse of his fathers, the old haught ancestral pride based not on any value but on an accident of geography, stemmed not from courage and honor but from wrong and shame, descended to him (2.3.1.52)

This is a pivotal episode for Roth Edmonds. He turns his back on his childhood friend Henry, the son of Lucas and Molly Beauchamp, the black woman who raised him. He comes into his racist heritage. He later feels shame, but the damage has been done. Faulkner suggests that Roth had to do this in order to feel white, that is, superior to Henry. That was his heritage and his curse.