How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Wooden bridges spanning brackish creeks named for long-gone Indian tribes rumble like far-off thunder under a passing wheel [...] (1.1.2)
Where did those Indian tribes go off to? They didn't just disappear. President Andrew Jackson (yeah, the one on the $50 bill) organized a mass removal of native Americans in the 1830s, so that the only thing left behind was place names and tears.
Quote #2
Radclif squinted his eyes while he considered. "Well," he said at last, "they've got a coupla n*****s out there, and I know them." (1.1.52)
Sam Radclif's description of the people living at Skully's Landing is obviously marked by his views on race. The way he constructs the sentence, "they've got," shows that he understands the relationship between the Skully family and their servants as one of ownership, and also reflects a deeply racist society.
Quote #3
Miss Roberta had lent Romeo as Joel's guide. The two kept duplicate pace; the Negro boy carried Joel's bag […] (1.1.99)
Even though slavery had been abolished many decades before, the way people interact reveals an ingrained attitude that considers black people to be property. Miss Roberta "lends" her employee to Joel, and he, as though it were expected of him, carries Joel's bag for him.
Quote #4
The length of her neck was something to ponder upon, for she was almost a freak, a human giraffe, and Joel recalled photos, which he'd scissored once from the pages of a National Geographic, of curious African ladies with countless silver chokers stretching their necks to improbable heights. (1.2.74)
Zoo's long neck is interesting to Joel, but we're interested in the way he thinks about it. He relates her body type to African animals, which is obviously linked to her race when the photos from Nat Geo are brought up. Comparing a black woman's neck to a giraffe's is dehumanizing—he's comparing her to an animal. And African animal, no less.
Quote #5
It was a bell like those used in slave-days to summon fieldhands from work; the metal had turned a mildewed green, and the platform on which it rested was rotten. (1.2.127)
The bell is a powerful symbol of slavery's legacy in the south. It is old and rusted, and its foundation is rotten. You could say that an economy or a society founded on the inequality of slavery is just as useless and rotten as the bell.
Quote #6
When the curtain fell abruptly closed, and the window was again empty, Joel, reawakening, took a backward step and stumbled against the bell: one raucous, cracked note rang out, shattering the hot stillness. (1.2.129)
The bell is the one that was used to call the slaves in from the fields, and the fact that it can still ring, even though it's rusted and rotten, is pretty surprising. But it's also surprising that people still treat black people as property, even if it's informally, so maybe that's what that bell's peal references.
Quote #7
Crossing a cane field, climbing a thread of path, passing a Negro house where in the yard there was a naked child fondling a little black goat, they passed into the woods through an avenue of bitter wild cherry trees. (2.7.10)
The narrator calls the house a "Negro house" which must mean something to the readers of the time. Given that the child in the yard is naked and the house is in the middle of the fields, off the roads, it would seem that a "Negro" house is a very poor house.
Quote #8
"This Toby, you see, she was a n***** baby, and her mama worked for old Mrs Skully like Zoo does now. She was Jesus Fever's wife, and Toby was their baby. Old Mrs Skully had a big fine Persian cat, and one day when Toby was asleep the cat sneaked in and put its mouth against Toby's mouth and sucked away all her breath." (2.7.11)
The relationship between Jesus Fever's family and the Skully family goes back generations. And the inequality does too. The idea that a very fancy, Persian cat would kill a child is horrifying, and shows that a pet overshadowed a baby's importance because the baby was black.
Quote #9
"Mister Randolph's granddaddy gimme this, that be more 'n sixty year ago." (2.9.6)
Jesus Fever has been working for the Skully family since Randolph's grandfather was in charge. The loyalty is, believe it or not, tied up in race relations. The idea of a servant belonging to a family has its roots in slavery. And it also shows that there are grey areas to these complicated, unequal relationships: Randolph's grandfather gave Jesus his prized sword as a gift.
Quote #10
It seemed odd to Joel nature did not reflect so solemn an event: flowers of cottonboll clouds within a sky as scandalously blue as kitten-eyes were offensive in their sweet disrespect: a resident of over a hundred years in so narrow a world deserved higher homage. (2.10.1)
We're zooming in on that phrase "so narrow a world" to try to connect it with Jesus Fever's race. His funeral was very sparsely attended, and Joel doesn't think that it's very appropriate. Jesus Fever had lived in the narrow world of Skully's Landing, but also the narrow-minded world that had been touched by racism and had nothing to show for it, which also reflects the narrowness.