How we cite our quotes: (Section.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"I ain't nothing but a n*****," Nancy said. "It ain't none of my fault." (1.29)
The distraught Nancy identifies herself with a racial slur. She says there is nothing more to her, and that it is something of her destiny to have problems, even if she is blameless for them. In short, she feels as if she's been condemned from birth. We want to reach into this story and hand Nancy a one-way ticket out of Jefferson.
Quote #5
Nancy whispered something. It was oh or no, I don't know which. Like nobody had made it, like it came from nowhere and went nowhere, until it was like Nancy was not there at all; that I had looked so hard at her eyes on the stairs that they had gotten printed on my eyeballs, like the sun does when you have closed your eyes and there is no sun. (2.5)
Here Quentin conveys the sense that Nancy has been erased or disappeared from society. The characters are in the white home, and the troubled Nancy has effectively no foothold there; it's as if she's not present at all. She's nothing more than an after-image of the sun on closed eyelids, a false thing, not a real one. Of course, the last line also echoes the story's title, since an evening sun is one that's disappearing. See "What's Up With the Title?" for more.
Quote #6
"Jesus is a n*****," Jason said.
"I can feel him, Nancy said. "I can feel him laying yonder in the ditch."
"Tonight?" Dilsey said. "Is he there tonight?"
"Dilsey's a n***** too," Jason said.
"You try to et something," Dilsey said.
"I don't want nothing," Nancy said.
"I ain't a n*****," Jason said. [...]
"I ain't a n*****," Jason said. "Am I, Dilsey?"
"I reckon not," Dilsey said. She looked at Nancy. "I don't reckon so. What you going to do, then?" (2.17-3.7)
As the two black women try to find a solution to Nancy's plight, the five-year-old Jason is able to interrupt them with his insistent talk about who is and who isn't a "n*****." The young child is fascinated with the question, as might be expected, and he seems to take pride in his status as a white person. The conversation seems to suggest that even a white five-year-old can steamroll black adults, given the power divide in the community.