How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
The length of her neck was something to ponder upon, for she was almost a freak, a human giraffe, and Joel recalled photos, which he'd scissored once from the pages of a National Geographic, of curious African ladies with countless silver chokers stretching their necks to improbable heights. (1.2.74)
Zoo's long neck is interesting to Joel, but we're interested in the way he thinks about it. He relates her body type to African animals, which is obviously linked to her race when the photos from Nat Geo are brought up. Comparing a black woman's neck to a giraffe's is dehumanizing—he's comparing her to an animal. And African animal, no less.
Quote #5
It was a bell like those used in slave-days to summon fieldhands from work; the metal had turned a mildewed green, and the platform on which it rested was rotten. (1.2.127)
The bell is a powerful symbol of slavery's legacy in the south. It is old and rusted, and its foundation is rotten. You could say that an economy or a society founded on the inequality of slavery is just as useless and rotten as the bell.
Quote #6
When the curtain fell abruptly closed, and the window was again empty, Joel, reawakening, took a backward step and stumbled against the bell: one raucous, cracked note rang out, shattering the hot stillness. (1.2.129)
The bell is the one that was used to call the slaves in from the fields, and the fact that it can still ring, even though it's rusted and rotten, is pretty surprising. But it's also surprising that people still treat black people as property, even if it's informally, so maybe that's what that bell's peal references.