How we cite our quotes: (Section.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"Why is Nancy afraid of Jesus?" Caddy said. "Are you afraid of father, mother?" (3.11)
Seven-year-old Caddy asks pressing questions throughout the story, demanding to know the reality of what's going on. The adults, however, ignore her, keeping knowledge away. It often seems as if sanity resides with her, the child, whereas the adults, supposedly more mature, are the true crazy ones.
Quote #5
She began to make the sound again, not loud. Not singing and not unsinging. We watched her. (3.18)
Huh? Okay, here's the deal. Nancy's wailing—or whatever her sound actually is—seems the very definition of unreality. It isn't singing, Quentin tells us, but it isn't not singing, either. It's neither and both at the same time. Talk about versions of reality.
Quote #6
She talked like her eyes looked, like her eyes watching us and her voice talking to us did not belong to her. Like she was living somewhere else, waiting somewhere else. She was outside the cabin. Her voice was inside and the shape of her, the Nancy that could stoop under a barbed wire fence with a bundle of clothes balanced on her head as though without weight, like a balloon, was there. But that was all. (3.63)
This passage also conveys the seeming unreality of Nancy, the way she seems not allowed to be a full member of her society or the way she is so afraid of Jesus that her mind is losing touch with reality. The real Nancy, Quentin senses, is beyond them; the one the kids see in the cabin is simply the laborer, the shell of her true self. The children perceive one version of Nancy, but the real version of her is elsewhere.