How we cite our quotes: (Paragraph)
Quote #7
She wasn't too old yet for Lydia to be driving eighty miles for advice when one of the children jumped the track, and Jimmy still dropped in and talked things over: "Now, Mammy, you've a good business head, I want to know what you think of this?. . ." (42).
Granny may have missed her calling as a lawyer. She's pretty good at digging up evidence to refute the charge that she's senile. Even if it turns out her kids have just been humoring her by asking for all that advice, these moments of reasoning that we readers get to see make it impossible for us to simply dismiss Granny as someone who's lost all her marbles.
Quote #8
She used to think of [John] as a man, but now all the children were older than their father, and he would be a child beside her if she saw him now. It seemed strange and there was something wrong in the idea (25).
Yeah, that is a kind of weird thought Granny has about her long-deceased husband. Why exactly is this a freaky thing to imagine?
Quote #9
It was good to be strong enough for everything, even if all you made melted and changed and slipped under your hands, so that by the time you finished you almost forgot what you were working for. What was it I set out to do? She asked herself intently, but she could not remember (26).
Sounds like Granny's describing a senior moment. The phrase "melted and changed and slipped under your hands" suggests a sense of instability and disorientation that's curiously similar to the way Granny later describes being jilted.