How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
The way Shannon said "nigger" tore at me, the tone pitched exactly like the echoing sound of Aunt Madeline sneering "trash" when she thought I wasn't close enough to hear. (11.117)
Yup, Bone is empathetic when it comes to people discriminating against and putting down other groups of people. Not to ask a huge general question or anything, but why do you think racism is addressed at all in the novel? What is the novel trying to tell us about prejudice (aside from the fact that it's bad)?
Quote #8
"Trash rises," Aunt Raylene joked the first afternoon I spent with her. "Out here were no one can mess with it, trash rises all the time." (12.35)
A wild double-entendre appears: yes, Raylene is talking about the literal trash that floats down the river by her house, but she's also talking about the Boatwrights themselves, who are repeatedly labeled "trash." The thing with a label like that is that it only exists if there are other people to call you it and make you feel it. Raylene chooses to live way out in the outskirts, where she doesn't feel bogged down by anyone else's judgments and labels... and we'll see later in the book that Raylene knows a thing or two about labels.
Quote #9
I was part of the trash down in the mud-stained cabins, fighting with the darkies and stealing ungratefully from our betters, stupid, coarse, born to shame and death. (14.7)
Believe you us, we know that books aren't always sympathetic when it comes to marginalized groups. And hey, seeing yourself excluded from literature and other forms of culture can sometimes have the same effect as what the people immediately around you say. What kind of exclusions are going on here, and what does it mean that Bone draws a parallel between the Boatwrights and the African Americans living her in her town?