How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Title.Paragraph)
Quote #13
I cried as if someone died.
Someone had.
I could see him in my mind's eye—a tall, proud black man in a suit and tie. He was dignified and fearsome. He was a man who could cut down a roomful of other men with only the brilliance of his words. I saw him walking down a city street, brisk and solemn, a briefcase under his arm. He glanced at me, walked up a flight of stone steps, and disappeared. (45.leporine.34-36)
Talk about your symbolic deaths. Mattie watches the physical representation of Weaver's dream—and his dignity and pride and solemnity and intelligence—disappear. And she hates it, because it's hard enough for her to have given up on her dream and her future of college. Which, at this point, she has.
Quote #14
"Why, Matt? Why are you going now?" he asks me.
I look at the Glenmore. I can see a light glowing softly in a window in a little bedroom off the parlor. "Because Grace Brown can't," I tell him. (49.33-34)
Death is both literal and figurative for Mattie, and she realizes that if she stays in Eagle Bay, her soul will die. Because Grace never got the chance to realize her own dreams of marriage, Mattie feels a responsibility to take control of her future instead of letting others make choices for her.