How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Title.Paragraph)
Quote #7
I remained on the ladder, looking at the figurine in my hand. You're wrong, Aunt Josie, I thought. It's not pride I'm feeling. It's another sin. Worse than all the other ones, which are immediate, violent, and hot. This one sits inside you quietly and eats you from the inside out like the trichina worms the pigs get. It's the Eighth Deadly Sin. The one God left out.
Hope. (12.UriahtheHittite,stinkpot,warthog.63-64)
Aunt Josie has just accused Mattie of being selfish and ungrateful for wanting to go to college. So there's some social pressure in the mix in addition to the pressure of familial life. But think about how interestingly Mattie characterizes hope: it's a sin, one that "eats you from the inside out." Hope is something that festers.
Quote #8
After a while, though, he took a breath, and just to say something, I told him I was going to college. I told him that I had been accepted to Barnard and that if I could only come up with some money, I would go.
He stopped dead in his tracks. "What on earth you want to do that for?" he asked, frowning.
"To learn, Royal. To read books and see if maybe I can write one myself someday."
"Don't know why you'd want to do that."
"Because I do," I said, annoyed by his reaction. (13.xerophilous.28-32)
There are many words we could use to describe Royal Loomis, and right now, we can't think of a single positive one. While we understand that Mattie is attracted to him—he seems like a pretty good-looking guy—we can't really forgive him for not paying attention to or trying to understand Mattie's dreams. His scorn for education and literature—a.k.a. her hopes and passions—make it harder for her to hold on to them, especially because she's so attracted to him.
Quote #9
My sisters scattered. Pa looked at me. "You couldn't tell me yourself?" he asked.
His eyes were hard and his voice was, too, and all the soft feelings I'd had for him only moments before swirled away like slop water down a drain.
"What for, Pa? So you could say no?"
He blinked at me and his eyes looked hurt, and I thought, just for a second, that he was going to say something tender to me, but no. "Go, then, Mattie. I won't stop you. But don't come back if you do," he said. Then he walked out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind him. (17.furtive.49-52)
Pa feels betrayed that his daughter wouldn't trust him with her dreams, but he also feels abandoned… especially after his wife abandoned him by dying and his son abandoned him by ditching life on the farm. Can we really blame him for his reaction? But then he gives Mattie the worst ultimatum ever: your dream or your family. It's really not a fair choice at all.