How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"This here's the Lord's day," she announced. "You believe in Him? You got faith in His healin power?" (1.2.76)
Okay, Shmoopeteers, we've been getting pretty grim with all this supernatural stuff, but Zoo is here to remind us that if the devil is walking around and popping up in conversation, so is the Lord. This ultimate fight between good and evil has a relevant, important role in the characters' day-to-day lives.
Quote #5
"When the time come for that Keg Brown to go, Lord, just you send him back in a hounddog's nasty shape, ol hound dog ain't nobody wants to trifle with: a haunted dog." (1.3.19)
Zoo's prayer, that her horrible, murderous husband be punished for his violent crime against her, reveals that she's playing the long game. She's basically powerless—impoverished, black, a woman—so she can't really get her revenge. So instead she looks for cosmic vengeance in the form of a nasty reincarnation.
Quote #6
"Just a hotbed of crazy n*****-notions, that girl. Remember when she wrung the neck off every chicken on the place? Oh, it isn't funny, don't laugh. I sometimes wondered what would happen if it got into her head his soul inhabited one of us." (1.4.10)
Miss Amy's racist remarks are crazy-offensive, but they do tell us something interesting about the society she lives in. She lumps all of Zoo's beliefs in the supernatural in with her race, as though only black people believed in souls and possessions. But we know that Florabel says her sister is inhabited by the devil, so this is a stereotype that doesn't hold up.