How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"Lou Ann, I moved in here because I knew we'd get along. It's nice of you to make dinner for us all, and to take care of Turtle sometimes, and I know you mean well. But we're acting like Blondie and Dagwood here. All we need is some ignorant little dog named Spot to fetch me my slippers. It's not like we're a family, for Christ's sake. You got your own life to live, and I've got mine. You don't have to do all this stuff for me." (6.65)
Why exactly is Taylor so resistant to playing house with Lou Ann? How does it make her feel to be the Dagwood to Lou Ann's Blondie? This says plenty about perceived gender roles for these characters, as well as their choice in comic strips.
Quote #8
He seemed almost undecided about telling me this. "Sometimes in an environment of physical or emotional deprivation a child will simply stop growing, although certain internal maturation does continue. It's a condition we call failure to thrive.
"But she's thriving now. I ought to know. I buy her clothes."
"Well, yes, of course. The condition is completely reversible." (8.146-148)
Turtle's "failure to thrive" isn't simply a medical condition. It's also a lead-in to the central symbol of the novel itself—the "bean trees" (aka wisteria vines) that are able to thrive in poor soil because of the microscopic rhizobia that help them grow. As in the earlier passage that associates Turtle's hands with "roots sucking on dry dirt" (1.144), this one continues to establish the symbolic connection between human families and tiny little bacteria. Sounds gross, but it's a pretty powerful use of literary symbolism!
Quote #9
But this is the most interesting part: wisteria vines, like other legumes, often thrive in poor soil, the book said. Their secret is something called rhizobia. These are microscopic bugs that live underground in little knots on the roots. They suck nitrogen gas right out of the soil and turn it into fertilizer for the plant. (17.137)
As Taylor and Turtle sit in the Oklahoma City library reading the Horticultural Encyclopedia, the novel finally makes a direct connection between the rhizobia that help wisteria vines to flourish and the kinds of extended families that can help human beings to grow. "It's just the same as with people," Taylor tells Turtle: "The way Edna has Virgie, and Virgie has Edna, and Sandi has Kid Central Station, and everybody has Mattie. And on and on" (17.139). Hard to untangle yourself from the roots of that symbolism.