How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
I am in a hospital. Father is in a hospital. A chicken is in a hospital. Father is a chicken is a dream that I am in a hospital where my neck and chin are covered with a thick red stubble of hair and I am reading the careful table of contents of a book that has no contents. (22.1)
Psychedelic! Sometimes Naomi's dreams are full of really crazy pictures, like this one. But they always have some kind of meaning behind the obvious strangeness. For example, chickens have already been associated with death in the novel, so seeing Naomi's father as a chicken makes us think that he's going to die. And the book with no contents? That sounds like the history of what happened to Naomi's mom. And this thick red stubble hair? Okay, you got us. We have no idea what that's about.
Quote #5
The kitten cries day after day, not quite dead, unable to climb out and trapped in the outhouse. The maggots are crawling in its eyes and mouth. Its fur is covered in slime and feces. Chickens with their heads half off flap and swing upside down in midair. The baby in the dream has fried-egg eyes and his excrement is soft and yellow as corn mush. (22.89)
Yeah, gross, we know. We just wanted to point out that besides reinforcing imagery that has a ready appeared in the novel Naomi's dreams also foreshadow later moments. For example, the maggots in the kitten's eyes foreshadow the maggots that Grandma Kato sees in her niece's eyes. Not that you wanted to see that imagery twice.
Quote #6
She is a maypole woman to whose apron-string streamers I cling and around whose skirts I dance. (24.4)
Maypoles are bright, tall, colorful symbols of spring. Children hold streamers and dance around the pole in circles. Naomi dreams of her mother as a maypole, which is a bright and cheerful bit of dream imagery (for once!).