How we cite our quotes: (Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The jailer cut her down and revived her; then he beat her, whipped her. She had hung herself with her dress. She had fixed it all right, but when they arrested her she didn't have on anything except a dress and so she didn't have anything to tie her hands with and she couldn't make her hands let go of the window ledge. So the jailer heard the noise and ran up there and found Nancy hanging from the window, stark naked, her belly already swelling out a little, like a little balloon. (1.14)
We really want to give Nancy a hug (and a time machine, so she can get out of the uber-racist pre-Civil Rights South). This quote illustrates how she lives a life fraught with fear. Her desire to kill herself apparently stems from her fear of the repercussions of her pregnancy, but at the same time, she is too afraid of suicide to commit it. Fear traps her. The story tells us that right from the first section.
Quote #2
"I can cut down the vine it did come off of," Jesus said. (1.18)
The one time Jesus actually shows up on stage in this story, he demonstrates his fear-inspiring qualities. He's ready to cut off the penis of whoever impregnated his wife. Yikes.
Quote #3
"You'll leave me alone, to take Nancy home?" mother said. "Is her safety more precious to you than mine?"
"I wont be long," father said.
"You'll leave these children unprotected, with that Negro about?" (1.49-51)
The main reaction we might have to this passage is to become disgusted at the mother for her indifference to Nancy's fate. No matter what we think of the mother, however, the passage still conveys a sense of menace: What is Jesus going to do? Kill someone? The story hits us with suspense right in the first section.
Quote #4
"He ain't gone nowhere," Nancy said. "I can feel him. I can feel him now, in this lane. He hearing us talk, every word, hid somewhere, waiting. I ain't seen him, and I ain't going to see him again but once more, with that razor in his mouth. That razor on that string down his back, inside his shirt. And then I ain't going to be even surprised." (1.65)
Scary stuff, right? Nancy's conviction that her death is fated and coming soon does double duty: it conveys that she feels a lack of control over life, which may be taken as a sign of the race-based inequality in Jefferson, and it conveys pure, frightening suspense. Lacking control over your life and fearing someone is coming after you are both terrifying things.
Quote #5
"I'd stand there right over them, and every time he wropped her, I'd cut that arm off. I'd cut his head off and I'd slit her belly and I'd shove—" (1.68)
Nancy insists that if Jesus is with another woman, she would cut off his penis ("arm") whenever he had sex ("wropped") her. Then she'd go after his head and her belly. Her statement amps up the level of fear, because even Nancy—the character readers probably worry most about—threatens to commit murderous violence.
Quote #6
"I know," Nancy said. "He's there, waiting. I know. I done lived with him too long. I know what he is fixing to do fore he know it himself." (2.25)
Now Nancy appears to have something of a psychic sense that Jesus is coming for her. But it's not something we can write off entirely; it makes sense that someone long-married could predict her spouse's behavior. So the sense of fear in the story continues to unnerve us and Nancy both, all while providing suspense that keeps us turning the pages.
Quote #7
Then the sound again, in the stairway, not loud, and we could see Nancy's eyes halfway up the stairs, against the wall. They looked like cat's eyes do, like a big cat against the wall, watching us. When we came down the steps to where she was, she quit making the sound again, and we stood there until father came back up from the kitchen, with his pistol in his hand. (2.3)
Okay, someone's pulled out a gun. That means business. And what's this stuff with Nancy's eyes peeled wide enough that they're visible from so far? Again, the passage serves to both illustrate Nancy's internal sense of helplessness (a scary thing) and the external threat of Jesus (another scary thing). We don't know about you, but we're ready to hide under the covers.
Quote #8
"Then why is she afraid?" mother said. "She says he is there. She says she knows he is there tonight." (3.13-14)
Eep! Who knew Faulkner could be as scary as Stephen King? Once more, the story keeps the suspense and fear turned up. In some ways, it's a story about fear: Nancy's inability to control her life, arguably due to the sharp, unfair division of the races, and the threat of her husband.
Quote #9
"Let's go down to my house and have some more fun," Nancy said. (3.24)
Okay, we've got a bit of nutso going on here. And more double-duty on the part of a single line. First, Nancy, who is convinced that no black person can stop Jesus, thinks that three children can. In this line, she tells nine-year-old Quentin, seven-year-old Caddy, and five-year-old Jason to come to her house with her. It seems she thinks their whiteness can stop Jesus, since surely their childhood alone can't. But secondly, we are now afraid for the children, not just Nancy. The stakes, and thus the suspense, have gone up.