Other Voices, Other Rooms The Supernatural Quotes

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

Quote #7

"Still, we haven't exorcized Master Knox's ghost."
"It wasn't any ghost," muttered Joel. "There isn't any such of a thing: this was a real live lady, and I saw her." (1.4.43-44)

The constant references to ghosts makes it easy to shrug off strange sights in and around Skully's Landing. If you can't explain something, just chalk it up to spirits. At least, that's what Randolph tries to do. But he can't convince Joel that the lady in the window was a ghost. If ghosts are an option for Joel (and we know they are because he thought the twins might be), then he must be really sure that she wasn't.

Quote #8

"A matter of viewpoint, I suppose," he said, and yawned. "I know her fairly well, and to me she is a ghost." (1.4.88)

Randolph talks in riddles, and this is a big one. He's talking about the "queer lady" in the window, and it seems strange that he would say that she's a ghost to him because of his viewpoint, and that he knows her well. If we believe that the lady is Randolph in a wig, then it's as though a feminine part of himself has died and comes back to haunt him.

Quote #9

Little Sunshine raised his arm: "Hurry, child, make a cross," he said in a trombone voice, "cause you done come up on me in the lighta day." Awed, Joel crossed himself. A smile stretched the hermit's thick wrinkled lips: "Spin round, boy, and you is saved." (1.5.10)

Little Sunshine makes a living out of dealing in the supernatural, selling charms. But when he gets Joel to obey him, crossing himself for seeing Little Sunshine in the daylight, that smile that stretches his lips might mean he doesn't usually convince his customers. This supernatural force might be more of a moneymaking scheme than anything else.