How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Title.Paragraph)
Quote #10
"Thought you were so smart, didn't you, Mattie? You, with your head always shoved in a book. Royal says you know a lot of words, but you don't even know how to please..."
"Martha, you say one more word and I'll slap your mouth right off your face," Fran said. "I swear to God I will." (39.confabulate.110-111)
We all know Martha is jealous of Royal's attentions to Mattie, and we know that her sentence ends with the words a man, but Martha sets up a question, and we wonder if it's true or false. Does being literary prevent a person from really knowing the world around them? That is, can Mattie be literary and a writer and married and housewifey? Or does she have to choose between the two?
Quote #11
I saw Frank Loomis's hairy behind in my mind's eye and Emmie bent over the stove. "Royal, you ... you know?"
"For god's sake, Mattie. Everyone in the whole damn county knows."
"I didn't know."
"That ain't hardly a surprise. You're too interested in what Blueberry Finn and Oliver Dickens and all the rest of them made-up people are doing to see what's going on right around you." (40.ideal.16-19)
Is Mattie's ignorance of her reality due to her nose in a book, or is it due to something else, perhaps her responsibilities to her family? Is it fair for Royal to make this accusation of Mattie, or is he right in some ways that Mattie forgoes her community for the community of literature? And how does he feel about Mattie's love of and involvement with literature?