How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The young are not so young here, and there is no such thing as midlife. (1.20)
The quintessential live-fast-die-young-in-the-City quote. Life moves so fast, and there is no much scandalous sin everywhere, that the young people get wise beyond their years. In the same way, life is so nonstop and exhausting that you just get old after a certain point. No midlife crisis for the City-dweller. No innocence, either.
Quote #2
From then on she hid the girl's hair in braids tucked under, lest whitemen see it raining round her shoulders and push dollar-wrapped fingers towards her. Much of this she could effect with her dress but as the girl grew older, more elaborate specifications had to be put in place. High-heeled shoes with the graceful strap across the arc, the vampy hats closed on the head with saucy brims framing the face, makeup of any kind—all of that way outlawed in Alice Manfred's house. (3.4)
Alice is the gatekeeper of innocence, and is working with the backward understanding that loss of innocence is something that comes from the outside. Her logic goes: As long as a man doesn't see Dorcas as sexual, she won't be sexual. Hmm… We know how well that works out.
Quote #3
When Alice Manfred collected the little girl from the Miller sisters, on those evenings following the days her fine stitching was solicited, the three women sat down in the kitchen to hum and sigh over cups of Postum at the signs of Imminent Demise: such as not just ankles but knees in full view, lip rouge as red as hellfire, burnt matchsticks rubbed on eyebrows, fingernails tipped with blood: you couldn't tell the streetwalkers from the mothers. (3.6)
Giving Alice the full historical benefit of the doubt, we guess she has a right to be shocked. The 1920s were super-shocking. Women were wearing dresses down to the floor a decade prior, and now they were showing off their scandalous knees. Lipstick was, prior to the 1920s, essentially stage makeup, it was the cosmetics equivalent of wearing a Vegas-style feathered headdress. No wonder it looked like innocence was gone for good for old women like Alice.