How we cite our quotes: (Section.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
The two aunts gave her quick, unbelieving looks. Then they were both uneasily silent, neither of them willing to take up the slack and tell the story I knew was about June. I'd heard Aurelia and my mother laughing and accusing each other of the hanging in times past, when it had been only a family story and not the private trigger of special guilts. They looked at me, wondering if I knew about the hanging, but neither would open her lips to ask. So I said I'd heard June herself tell it. (1.2.90)
Now that June has passed, Aurelia and Zelda don't find the story of how they almost killed June as children super funny… however, it doesn't sound like it was a terribly funny story to begin with. The Kashpaw children seemed to have abused June freely, and she just put up with it—in fact, in this case, she welcomed it. She'd already had a pretty rough life, so perhaps that's why she didn't feel equipped to battle with her siblings.
Quote #5
I stumbled straight into the lighted kitchen and saw at once that King was trying to drown Lynette. He was pushing her face in the sink of cold dishwater. Holding her by the nape and ears. Her arms were whirling, knocking spoons and knives and bowls out of the drainer. She struggled powerfully, but he had her. I grabbed a block of birch out of the woodbox and hit King on the back of the neck. The wood bounced out of my fists. He pushed her lower, and her throat caught and gurgled. (1.4.36)
Albertine wakes up from her overnight drinking fest with Lipsha to realize that Lynette and King are fighting, and she finds King trying to drown Lynette in the sink. After she breaks up the incident, Lynette and King somehow make up and take the car just a few feet from the house so they can have sex.
Quote #6
"I will boil him from your mind if you make a peep… by filling your ear." (2.1.60)
Man, there really are a huge number of examples of abuse in this book—and different kinds of abuse, too. In addition to family disputes involving psychological and physical abuse, here we just get pure sadism.
Okay, Sister Leopolda genuinely seems to believe that she would be helping Marie by boiling the devil from her mind, but it's pretty clear that she's just crazy and makes religion all about pain, suffering, and abuse.