How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
She had been in school but half a day when she knew that she would never be a teacher’s pet. That privilege was reserved for a small group of girls [. . .] They were the children of the prosperous storekeepers of the neighborhood [. . .] Miss Brigg’s voice was gentle when she spoke to these fortune-favored few, and snarling when she spoke to the great crowd of the unwashed. (19.3)
School, like life, can be an unfair place. Francie isn’t going to have an easy time getting what she wants here either because of her poverty.
Quote #8
“They think it’s good—the tree they got for nothing and their father playing up to them and the singing and the way the neighbors are happy. They think they’re mighty lucky that they’re living and that it’s Christmas again. They can’t see that we live on a dirty street in a dirty house among people who aren’t much good. (27.35)
More than anything, Mama wants her kids out of this place. She is afraid that they will settle for this life because the people around them have settled for it.
Quote #9
[Miss Jackson] can live in the middle of a dirty neighborhood and be fine and clean and like an actress in a play; someone you can look at who is too fine to touch. There is that difference between her and Mrs. McGarrity who has so much money but is too fat and acts in a dirty way with the truck drivers who deliver her husband’s beer. So what is this difference between her and this Miss Jackson who has no money? [. . .] Education! That was it! It was what made the difference. Education would pull them out of the grime and the dirt. (27.35-36)
Do you think that if everyone has the same amount of education, there will no longer be any poverty?