How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
I picked him out from all the others wasn't nobody like Joe he make anybody stand in cane in the middle of the night; make any woman dream about him in the daytime so hard she miss the rut and have to work hard to get the mules back on the track. Any woman, not just me. (4.9)
Violet remembers when Joe was super-hot. All the ladies loved Joe, and Violet felt victorious when she was the one that ended up with him. This is both perfectly normal—everyone likes to feel like they've landed a hottie—and symptomatic of Jazz's approach to lust and power. Having lust, and picking your mate, makes you powerful.
Quote #8
Under the table at the Indigo was she drumming on a thigh soft as a baby's but feeling all the while the way it used to be skin so tight it almost split and let the iron muscle through? Did she feel that, know that? (4.9)
Violet's lust toward Joe is, first and foremost, based in memory. She remembers when Joe was young and strapping and wonders whether Dorcas's lust toward Joe was, in some way, based in the same memory. Violet's lust toward Joe has deteriorated the same way Joe's thighs have, and she wishes they could have both been preserved. This is kind of similar—though nowhere near as violent—as Joe killing Dorcas in order to keep his lust for, and memory of, her intact.
Quote #9
"She's so glad I found her. Arching and soft, wanting me to do it, asking me to. Just me. Nobody but me." (7.48)
Right, so this is Joe's fantasy. Dorcas doesn't actually want Joe, Joe and only Joe—she has a new boyfriend named Acton and she lurves him. But Joe's ideal reconnection with Dorcas has her wanting him exclusively. Has his love for Dorcas always been this selfish, or is this Joe just being a sad spurned lover?