How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Title.Paragraph)
Quote #10
"My husband is on his way, Mattie. My sister wired that he's a day away at most. If I'm still here when he arrives, the next stop for me is a doctor's office. And then a sanatorium and so many drugs pushed down my throat, I won't be able to remember my own name, much less write."
"He can't do that."
"He can. He's a powerful man with powerful friends." (38.threnody.37-39)
It's not just the men in rural New York who have power, and here Miss Wilcox admits that her husband will do everything to keep her from writing and embarrassing him and his reputation. To him, she's no more than a problem that must be dealt with. And it's scary to Mattie how much power a husband has over his wife. Heck, it's scary to us over a hundred years later.
Quote #11
Clara's eyes narrowed. "That's not what I heard. I heard she wrote dirty poems under another name and when the school trustees found out it was her writing them, they sent her packing."
"She wrote beautiful poems, Clara," I said, bristling. "Have you ever read one?"
"I wouldn't. Not ever. My mother says her books aren't decent. She says they're dangerous." (39.confabulate.48-50)
At the Fourth of July celebration, a former classmate of Mattie's takes issue with Miss Wilcox's poems. But she's never even read them. And it's a good thing, too, because they might contaminate her… or, you know, open her mind to a world of possibilities. Same difference.
Quote #12
She turned and ran off toward the lake and Ada and I ran after her, laughing and crowing the whole way. (43.nonpareil.66)
After the girls trick table six and humiliate him, they regain some of the power they have lost. In fact, this power gives them a freedom that they previously hadn't realized. Even though the whole table six plot line seems only to add humor, we realize that it's more likely there as a way for Mattie to see what power feels like.