Quote 1
"You could loan it to me. I'd pay it all back… every penny of it. Please, Aunt Josie?" I spoke those last words in a whisper.
My aunt didn't reply right away; she just looked at me in such a way that I suddenly knew just how Hester Prynne felt when she had to stand on that scaffold. (12.UriahtheHittite,stinkpot,warthog.59-60)
Even though Mattie thinks that the literature she reads doesn't necessarily relate to her, there are moments when it clearly does. And when Aunt Josie refuses to give Mattie money to go to Barnard, Mattie connects how she feels to how a character in a book feels. Notably, when Mattie compares her life to literary characters in A Northern Light, it's usually to characters who are undergoing stress or conflict.
"I'm sorry, Miss Wilcox," I said, looking at the floor. "I don't mean to be coarse. I just ... I don't know why I should care what happens to people in a drawing room in London or Paris or anywhere else when no one in those places cares what happens to people in Eagle Bay."
Miss Wilcox's eyes were still fixed on me, only now they were shiny. Like they were the day I got my letter from Barnard. "Make them care, Mattie," she said softly. "And don't you ever be sorry." (22.glean.82-83)
Mattie has just finished communicating to Miss Wilcox and her sister Lou that writers are liars and talking about how they need to be talking about topics closer to their readers' hearts. And Miss Wilcox pushes the importance of literature again: writing is meant to make people care about the common people. This interaction becomes more meaningful when we think about Miss Wilcox as Emily Baxter, revolutionary feminist poet.
Quote 3
I saw Frank Loomis's hairy behind in my mind's eye and Emmie bent over the stove. "Royal, you ... you know?"
"For god's sake, Mattie. Everyone in the whole damn county knows."
"I didn't know."
"That ain't hardly a surprise. You're too interested in what Blueberry Finn and Oliver Dickens and all the rest of them made-up people are doing to see what's going on right around you." (40.ideal.16-19)
Is Mattie's ignorance of her reality due to her nose in a book, or is it due to something else, perhaps her responsibilities to her family? Is it fair for Royal to make this accusation of Mattie, or is he right in some ways that Mattie forgoes her community for the community of literature? And how does he feel about Mattie's love of and involvement with literature?
Quote 4
Quote 5
I would have liked to tell Mr. Palmer just how old and feeble that joke is, but instead I said, "Oh, of course, sir! How clever of you!" because I had learned a thing or two during my time at the Glenmore. About when to tell the truth and when not to. (8.6)
One mark of maturity is learning the rules of the game. Mattie has learned how to work the dining room to her advantage, though she never really develops the mercenary nature of either Weaver or Fran. She's too earnest and good-hearted for that.
Quote 6
My voice trembled as I spoke, as it did whenever I was angry. "I feel let down sometimes. The people in books—the heroes—they're always so… heroic. And I try to be, but…"
"… you're not," Lou said, licking deviled ham off her fingers.
"… no, I'm not. People in books are good and noble and unselfish, and people aren't that way ... and I feel, well… hornswoggled sometimes. By Jane Austen and Charles Dickens and Louisa May Alcott. Why do writers make things sugary when life isn't that way?" I asked too loudly. "Why don't they tell the truth? Why don't they tell how a pigpen looks after the sow's eaten her children? Or how it is for a girl when her baby won't come out? Or that cancer has a smell to it? All those books, Miss Wilcox," I said, pointing at a pile of them, "and I bet not one of them will tell you what cancer smells like. I can, though. It stinks. Like meat gone bad and dirty clothes and bog water all mixed together. Why doesn't anyone tell you that?" (22.glean.77-79)
Mattie takes issue with the false but beautiful world presented to her in books. Previously, she was okay with the characters and the authors' choices, but now she's beginning to question the verity of some of what she's read. In fact, Mattie's starting to look far more critically at literature than she ever has before, and critical thinking is one marker of adulthood.
Quote 7
"Tommy… tell your ma… tell her I'll call on her a bit later, all right? All right, Tom? Here… here are some biscuits. Take them in to her when… when you can."
Tommy didn't answer me. His thin shoulders sagged from the weight of knowing. I could feel the heaviness, too, and it made me angry. I didn't want it. Didn't want to carry it. Tommy took the food, but he wouldn't look at me. (27.hispidulous.36-37)
Mattie has just realized the true nature of Frank Loomis and Emmie Hubbard's relationship. And this knowledge, and the shame it brings not only her but her friend Tommy, weighs heavily on her soul. She doesn't want to shoulder the knowledge, but she's got no choice.
Quote 8
"Things ain't always what they seem, Mattie. You remember that. Just because a cat has her kittens in the oven, it don't make 'em biscuits." Things are never what they seem, Pa, I thought. I used to think they were, but I was wrong or stupid or blind or something. Old folks are forever complaining about their failing eyesight, but I think your vision gets better as you get older. Mine surely was. (29.icosahedtrom.7-8)
Mattie's learning more and more about her community and her world, and she's leaving the ignorance of childhood behind for a multi-faceted view of the world. It's not always easy to come to terms with these realizations, but Mattie is determined to do so—and Pa seems to think she's ready, too.
Quote 9
"But it's not right, sir. I shouldn't be called names. Shouldn't catch a beating. Shouldn't have to stay in the kitchen, either."
"How old are you, Weaver? Seventeen or seven? Don't you know that what should be and what is are two different things? You should be dead. Luckily, you aren't. You think on that the next time you decide to take on three grown men." He stormed back out. (31.limicolous.22-24)
Mattie's not the only person maturing throughout the novel. After Weaver gets in the fight with the trappers, he, too, has to come to terms with how the world is versus how he wants it to be. Mr. Sperry, the owner of the hotel, compares Weaver to a child, and in some ways, he's right—there's a big difference between childish idealism and idealism tempered with a mature view of reality, after all. Which does Weaver have, and how does his idealism change throughout the novel?
Quote 10
I knew he'd say no. Why had I even asked? I stared at my hands—red, cracked, old woman's hands—and saw what was in store for me: a whole summer of drudgery and no money for it. Cooking, cleaning, washing, sewing, feeding chickens, slopping pigs, milking cows, churning cream, salting butter, making soap, plowing, planting, hoeing, weeding, harvesting, haying, threshing, canning—doing everything that fell on the eldest in a family of four girls, a dead mother, and a pissant brother who took off to drive boats on the Erie Canal and refused to come back and work the farm like he ought to.
I was yearning, and so I had more courage than was good for me. "Pa, they pay well," I said. "I thought I could keep back some of the money for myself and give the rest to you. I know you need it." (2.fractious.115-116)
Think about all the duties Mattie lists on the farm. Previously, her father has stated that he can't run the farm alone, and it becomes clear here that running a farm in the early twentieth century Adirondacks requires a ton of hard labor, long days, and self-sacrifice. Mattie is the only one who can help Pa as much as he needs it, and she's torn between her desire to do so and her desire to earn money to go to college.
Quote 11
"But you can't break a promise to anyone who's dead. They'll come back and haunt you if you do. Why are you asking?"
Ada blinks at me with her huge, dark eyes, and even though it's boiling hot in our room, I suddenly feel cold. I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. "No reason," I say. (11.22-23)
Mattie made two promises to dead people: She promised her mother she would stay, and she promised Grace she would burn her letters. Does this fall in the components of duty and responsibility, and how is Mattie haunted for eventually breaking both of these promises? (Boo.)
Quote 12
And then one moved higher and before I knew what was happening, he was kneading my breast, pushing and pulling on it like he might a cow's teat.
"Stop it, Royal," I said, breaking away, my face flaming.
"What's wrong?" he asked. "You saving them?"
I couldn't look at him.
"For who, Matt?"
And then he laughed and started back home. (13.xerophilous.37-42)
Mattie likens the way Royal touches her to how he touches a cow—instead of flowery language and intimate caresses, Royal treats her like a farm animal, a commodity. And then he has the audacity to ask Mattie why she wants him to stop and laugh at her, as though it's funny she has an opinion on this interaction. If we didn't dislike Royal and his treatment of women, we sure do now. Clearly, he doesn't value Mattie for more than her body.
Quote 13
I did not laugh. "I am never going to marry," I said. "Never."
"Oh no?"
"No. Never."
"Well, we'll see about that," Mrs. Crego said. Her face softened. "The pain stops, you know, Mattie. And the memory of it fades. Minnie will forget all about this one day."
"Maybe she will, but I surely won't," I said. (9.wan.61-65)
Mattie has just seen a pretty awful natural childbirth, and her response is a loud and clear no thank you. If she stays and marries, though, there's no question that having and raising children will be in her future. The experience of witnessing Minnie's birth, as well as Minnie's loving reaction to her husband after the twins are born, drastically influence Mattie's view of what motherhood is really like.
Quote 14
I lie back against my pillow and spend a long time silently repeating them to myself, over and over and over again like a litany, but it's no use. Mamma said I would know. And I do. I guess I have all along.
"Poor, sad, stupid Grace," I whisper to the darkness. "Poor, sad, stupid Matt." (37.21-22)
Grace convinced herself that Chester loved her, but in one of the last letters she wrote, she reveals that she's aware he doesn't love her at all, and Mattie has tried to convince herself Royal loves her, but she knows the truth. Yet another way that Grace helps Mattie on her path to college. For marriage without love would not be worth the sacrifice of herself to Mattie.
Quote 15
"And Mike Bouchard. And Weaver, too."
"Weaver Smith is no recommendation."
"Please, Pa," I whispered. (2.fractious.118-119)
Mattie wants to go work at the Glenmore Hotel to earn money for college, but Pa makes it clear that he doesn't approve of Weaver. We don't really know whether it's because Weaver fuels Mattie's dreams to be a writer or if it's because of race, but either way it's fairly standard for how race is treated in A Northern Light; it's complicated and entangled with other facets of society and people's beliefs.
Quote 16
"Hush, Weaver, just let it go," I said, wrapping up a chunk of ice in a towel. "A few days in the kitchen won't kill you. It's better than losing your job. Here, hold this against your lip."
"Don't have much of a choice, do I?" he grumbled. He pressed the ice to his lip, winced, then said, "Three more months, Matt. Just three more months and I'm gone from here. Once I get through Columbia, once I'm a lawyer, ain't no one ever going to hand me a suitcase. Or call me boy or n***** or Sam. Or hit me. And if they do, I'll make sure they go to jail." (31.limicolous.26-27)
As understanding as Mattie can be, she doesn't quite get the depth of injustice that Weaver experiences because of his race. Yes, he's angry about being confined to the kitchen, but he's far angrier about the injustice that he is essentially being punished while the trappers are currently roaming free. College is the way for Weaver to right the wrongs of the world, and he's bent on achieving it. Which makes the death of his dream of college even more devastating.
Quote 17
"With just a few words. And then a few more. And then the words turned into insults and threats and worse, and then a man was dead. Just because of words."
Royal was silent, chewing on all I'd said, I imagined.
"I know you told me words are just words, Royal, but words are powerful things—"
I felt a poke in my back. "Hey, Mattie..."
I turned around. "What, Jim? What do you want?" I asked, irritated.
"There goes Seymour! Ain't you going to wave?"
"Who?"
"Seymour, Mattie! Seymour Butts!"
Jim and Will howled with laughter. Royal didn't actually laugh, but he grinned. And I was silent the rest of the way home. (14.monochromatic.97-105)
Right after Weaver gets into the conflict with the man at the train station, Royal gives Mattie a ride home. Whereas Mattie is contemplating the power of words and the meaning of them, Royal and his siblings demonstrate, somewhat insensitively, that words don't necessarily have to be important. In fact, they clearly communicate to Mattie that her words and ideas aren't important because they don't listen to her. So Mattie chooses to be silent.
Quote 18
Voice, according to Miss Wilcox, is not just the sound that comes from your throat but the feeling that comes from your words. I hadn't understood that at first. "But Miss Wilcox, you use words to write a story, not your voice," I'd said.
"No, you use what's inside of you," she said. "That's your voice. Your real voice. It's what makes Austen sound like Austen and no one else. What makes Yeats sound like Yeats and Shelley like Shelley. It's what makes Mattie Gokey sound like Mattie Gokey. You have a wonderful voice, Mattie. I know you do, I've heard it. Use it." (46.9-10)
Although voice is traditionally tied to writing, it's also inherently tied to individuality. But consider too, a different meaning, a comparison between giving voice to something and remaining silent about it. Mattie has a voice as a writer, it's true, but she's trying to decide whether the sacrifices necessary to communicate her voice are worth the life she would have in Eagle Bay if she stayed silent.
Quote 19
"I went over early to see if Lou wanted to go fishing, and I knocked and knocked but no one came. The cows were bellowing, so I went in the barn. Daisy's real bad. She ain't been milked. Ain't none of them have. I didn't know what to do, Matt. I went inside the house ... They're all real bad. I found Lou in the grass by the outhouse, I got her inside, but—"
I didn't hear anything else for I was already running. Down the back steps to the Glenmore's drive and out to the Big Moose Road. (35.aby.15-16)
Even though Mattie feels that her future is slowly drawing her away from Eagle Bay and her family, when her family falls horribly ill, she goes immediately. It's in times of trouble that we realize how important family ties are.