How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Resisting her aunt's protection and restraining hands, Dorcas thought of that life-below-the-sash as all the life there was. (3.17)
Here's another handy jazz-is-lust, lust-is-jazz passage. For Alice, spiritual music is the music of the head and heart, while jazz is the music of the "below-the-sash" region. Dorcas, who loves jazz, is also really interested in kick-starting her love life. Coincidence? In the world of Jazz, nope.
Quote #5
The children scratched their knees and nodded, but Dorcas, at least, was enchanted by the frail, melty tendency of the flesh and the Paradise that could make a woman go back after two days, two! or make a girl travel four hundred miles to a camptown, or fold Neola's arm, the better to hold the pieces of her heart in her hand. (3.21)
When Neola tells Dorcas about the devastating effects of lust—the ruined lives and the women who fell for the wrong men just because of their looks—Dorcas thinks it all sounds fantastic. This is not the intended effect of Neola's lecture, but hey, you can't win them all. Oh, and this passage kind of proves that Dorcas doesn't have a child's understanding as love as all white doves and wedding cakes and happiness; instead she's "enchanted" by the disastrous possibilities.
Quote #6
They spoke to her firmly but carefully about her body: sitting nasty (legs open); sitting womanish (legs crossed); breathing through her mouth; hands on hips; slumping at table; switching when you walked. (3.61)
Poor Alice. She's subjected to all of these rules about being ladylike. To our 21st-century perspective, being ladylike sounds like a really uncomfortable and constricting activity. But the idea that Alice is raised with is that being a lady means appearing as nonsexual as possible. Lust = bad, while breathing through your nose = good.