How we cite our quotes: (Poem.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Maybe there would always be those shadows over his shoulder and out of the corner of each eye; and in the nights the dreams and the voices. Maybe there was nothing anyone could do for him. (XII.1)
Here Tayo resigns himself to feeling stressed out for the rest of his life. Um, yeah…no thank you.
Quote #5
Those who did not die grew up by the river, watching their mothers leave at sundown. They learned to listen in the darkness, to the sounds of footsteps and loud laughing, to voices and sounds of wine; to know when the mother was returning with a man. They learned to stand at a distance and see if she would throw them food—so they would go away and not peek through the holes in the rusting tin, at the man spilling wine on himself as he unbuttoned his pants. (XII.11)
The homeless children of the prostitutes in Gallup lead seriously hard lives. Pretty much as soon as they can walk, they have to learn to fend for themselves. How does their suffering relate to Tayo's mental suffering?
Quote #6
They walked like survivors, with dull vacant eyes, their fists clutching the coins he'd thrown to them. [ . . . ] (XIII.2)
This description of the homeless Native Americans in Gallup walking like "survivors" makes us think of Tayo and the other POWs being forced to march to the prison camp, or of the shell-shocked survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The novel seems to be telling us that the suffering caused by poverty and homelessness has a lot in common with the suffering caused by war.