How we cite our quotes: (Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"It never come off of your vine, though," Nancy said.
"Off of what vine?" Caddy said.
"I can cut down the vine it did come off of," Jesus said. (1.16-18)
The story juxtaposes the children's reality with the adults' reality. The adults understand sexual euphemisms—here, you know that vine stands in for penis—and other facts such as that Nancy is pregnant. The children inhabit a different world, mystified by the adults' words and actions. The subtlety adds to the story's horror, since reality is clear but only menacingly hinted at.
Quote #2
Nancy had her hat on. We came to the lane. "Jesus always been good to me," Nancy said. "Whenever he had two dollars, one of them was mine." We walked in the lane. "If I can just get through the lane," Nancy said, "I be all right then." (1.57)
Wait, isn't Jesus supposed to be this super scary guy endangering everyone in the story? That's one reality Nancy believes. At the same time, she says he's been good to her. Maybe she's just trying to calm herself. Either way, the true reality of who Jesus is remains ambiguous.
Quote #3
"Drink some coffee," Dilsey said. She poured a cup of coffee for Nancy. "Do you know he's out there tonight? How come you know it's tonight?"
"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." (2.24-25)
Check this out: it's yet another passage with ambiguity. Nancy claims to know Jesus is waiting for her, as if she can foretell the future, perhaps a sort of mad conviction in her mind. It sounds pretty looney tunes to us. On the other hand, maybe she's just making a reasonable prediction.
Quote #4
"Why is Nancy afraid of Jesus?" Caddy said. "Are you afraid of father, mother?" (3.11)
Seven-year-old Caddy asks pressing questions throughout the story, demanding to know the reality of what's going on. The adults, however, ignore her, keeping knowledge away. It often seems as if sanity resides with her, the child, whereas the adults, supposedly more mature, are the true crazy ones.
Quote #5
She began to make the sound again, not loud. Not singing and not unsinging. We watched her. (3.18)
Huh? Okay, here's the deal. Nancy's wailing—or whatever her sound actually is—seems the very definition of unreality. It isn't singing, Quentin tells us, but it isn't not singing, either. It's neither and both at the same time. Talk about versions of reality.
Quote #6
She talked like her eyes looked, like her eyes watching us and her voice talking to us did not belong to her. Like she was living somewhere else, waiting somewhere else. She was outside the cabin. Her voice was inside and the shape of her, the Nancy that could stoop under a barbed wire fence with a bundle of clothes balanced on her head as though without weight, like a balloon, was there. But that was all. (3.63)
This passage also conveys the seeming unreality of Nancy, the way she seems not allowed to be a full member of her society or the way she is so afraid of Jesus that her mind is losing touch with reality. The real Nancy, Quentin senses, is beyond them; the one the kids see in the cabin is simply the laborer, the shell of her true self. The children perceive one version of Nancy, but the real version of her is elsewhere.
Quote #7
She told a story [...] "And so this here queen come walking up to the ditch, where that bad man was hiding. She was walking up to the ditch, and she say, "If I can just get past this here ditch." was what she say…"
"What ditch?" Caddy said. "A ditch like that one out there? Why did a queen want to go into a ditch?"
"To get to her house," Nancy said. She looked at us. "She had to cross the ditch to get into her house quick and bar the door."
"Why did she want to go home and bar the door?" Caddy said. (3.63-66)
Poor Nancy! She seems unable to cope with the reality of her plight and compelled to create another version of it, a fictional story that obviously resembles the truth of what is going on. And she's left to express her fear to children who can't fully understand, as shown by Caddy's questions. This is making us sad.
Quote #8
"What, Father?" Caddy said. "What's going to happen?"
"Nothing," father said. (6.3-4)
In this passage, the father defines reality without hesitation. Nothing is going to happen, he insists. Oh yeah? Are you sure about that, buddy? After all, he confidently said earlier that someone had told Nancy that Jesus was back in town. Her worries aren't entirely unreasonable. Yet Mr. Jason, by simplifying the situation, acts as if he has reality totally under his control, as if his version must be the correct one.
Quote #9
But we could hear her, because she began just after we came up out of the ditch, the sound that was not singing and not unsinging. "Who will do our washing now, Father?" I said. (6.9)
Okay, these two simple lines of the story really tell us a lot. The two chief versions of reality in the story are juxtaposed sharply here. In the first sentence, we have the abandoned Nancy's reality-unreality wailing, and in the second, we have Quentin's question, which shows the white family's indifference to Nancy's fate. Nancy must cope with the reality of mortal fear; the white family just has to worry about their laundry. Blegh.
Quote #10
"I'm not a nigger," Jason said, high and close above father's head. (6.10)
Oh, wow. He really says that, in this passage near the end of the story, on Mr. Jason's shoulders, higher than everyone else, as though he's the king of the world. His statement can be taken to mean that in Jefferson, those who are white do not have to worry about being abandoned, whereas those with relatively little power, such as Nancy, do.