How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Yes, I did say that, and it is true. But who made them so cruel? It is the whites who made them so cruel! Yes!" [Florence] breathed deeply, passionately. (2.96)
Florence acknowledges that kids these days have become cruel, but it's not entirely their fault – it's the whites of South Africa who have made them that way. This moment shows us the deep racial divides that pervade the whole country.
Quote #2
"You say, 'This is not my child, this is the white man's child, this is the monster made by the white man.' Is that all you can say? Are you going to blame them on the whites and turn your back?" (2.98)
Mrs. Curren tries to play devil's advocate to Florence by suggesting that she can't merely blame the whites and leave it at that; she has to do something about the terrible things she sees happening around her. Still, do you think it's possible that, as a white woman, Mrs. Curren feels put off by the way that Florence blames whites as an entire race?
Quote #3
Did we not have Voortrekkers, generation after generation of Voortrekkers, grim-faced, tight-lipped Afrikaner children, marching, singing their patriotic hymns, saluting their flag, vowing to die for their fatherland? Ons sal lewe, ons sal sterwe. Are there not still white zealots preaching the old regime of discipline, work, obedience, self-sacrifice, a regime of death, to children some too young to tie their own shoelaces? What a nightmare from beginning to end! (2.101)
Mrs. Curren thinks about the racial divide that runs through South African history. She sees a legacy of white supremacy and hatred not only in the past, but also in the future.
Quote #4
Blood on the floor, blood on the benches. What did our timid thimbleful count for beside this torrent of black blood? Child snowdrop lost in the cavern of blood, and her mother too. A country prodigal of blood. (2.195)
Mrs. Curren remembers taking her daughter to the emergency room years ago for a cut on her finger. When they got to the ER, they witnessed some real suffering – blood was spilling everywhere. Mrs. Curren noticed that the people with the worst injuries were black – all of a sudden, her little white daughter's injuries didn't seem to even compare.
Quote #5
As long as I pinched tight I could hold in most of the flow. But when I relaxed blood poured again steadily. It was blood, nothing more, blood like yours and mine. Yet never before had I seen anything so scarlet and so black. Perhaps it was an effect of the skin, youthful, supple, velvet dark, over which it ran; but even on my hands it seemed both darker and more glaring than blood ought to be. (2.197)
John's blood is all over the place, and Mrs. Curren has never seen anything quite like it. She can't tell whether his blood itself is dark or if it's the effect of him having dark skin.
Quote #6
Tired though I was, I trailed through the male wards behind Florence and Bheki. It was the hour of the siesta; doves were calling softly from the trees outside. We saw no black boys with bandaged heads, only old white men in pajamas staring emptily at the ceiling while the radio played soothing music. (2.244)
The image of old, white men in a peaceful ward is a startling contrast to Mrs. Curren's memory of John's suffering. This moment is really intriguing because it seems to show how there's a huge divide between the realities that whites and blacks face. Even when whites are dying, they're old and listen to soothing music. It's striking to compare that image with that of young black boys withstanding painful acts of violence.
Quote #7
I, a white. When I think of the whites, what do I see? I see a herd of sheep (not a flock: a herd) milling around on a dusty plain under the baking sun. I hear a drumming of hooves, a confusion of sound that resolves itself, when the ear grows attuned, into the same bleating call in a thousand different inflections: "I!" "I!" "I!" And, cruising among them, bumping them aside with their bristling flanks, lumbering, saw-toothed, red-eyed, the savage, unreconstructed old boars grunting "Death!" "Death!" Though it does me no good, I flinch from the white touch as much as he does; would even flinch from the old white woman who pats his hand if she were not I. (2.327)
After witnessing some of the horrible ways in which white South Africans treat black South Africans, Mrs. Curren starts to feel guilty about her own race.
Quote #8
"Put this over your head," said Mr. Thabane, offering the plastic raincoat.
"Nonsense," I said, "I don't mind a little rain."
"Still, hold it over you," he insisted. I understood. (3.74-76)
Mr. Thabane isn't trying to protect Mrs. Curren from the rain; he's trying to shield her because it's dangerous to be a white woman in an area where whites are so deeply hated.
Quote #9
"I have not seen black people in their death before, Mr. Vercueil. They are dying all the time, I know, but always somewhere else. The people I have seen die have been white and have died in bed, growing rather dry and light there, rather papery, rather airy." (3.324)
Mrs. Curren starts to understand a huge discrepancy between the lives that whites in South Africa lead and the lives that blacks are forced into. She realizes that people of her race aren't subjected to the same kinds of violent deaths, which is really eye opening for her.
Quote #10
"Now that child is buried and we walk upon him. Let me tell you, when I walk upon this land, this South Africa, I have a gathering feeling of walking upon black faces. They are dead but their spirit has not left them." (3.329)
After all of the atrocities she witnesses being committed towards her black neighbors, Mrs. Curren can't help but feel that all of the black people before them must have met horrific ends, too. What's interesting about this moment is that she seems to be making a statement about how if whites are really at the top of the heap, it's because they've actively held down the black people of South Africa for so long.