Key Themes and Key Quotes Letters 1-20
Gender
Culture
Education
Relationships
Ethnicity and Race
Religion
Identity
Sexuality
"Dear God"
"You gonna do what your mammy wouldn't"
"I am I have always been a good girl"
Don't nobody come and see us"
"I'm big"
" I'm Big"
" I see him looking at my little sister. She scared"
"I tell Nettie to keep at her books"
"He beat me today cause he say I winked at a boy in church"
Sometime he still be looking at Nettie,
Sometime he still be looking at Nettie but I always git in his light "
"An now when I dream, I dream of Shug Avery."
" I tell him I can fix myself up for him"
"He beat me for dressing trampy but he do it to me anyway"
"I want her to git some more schooling .Make a school teeacher out of her"
"She ain't fresh"
"She spoiled"
"She ugly"
"The first time I got big Pa took me out of school"
"Your too dump to keep going to school"
"I know what he doing to me he done to Shug Avery and maybe she like it. I put my arm around him,"
"She too black"
"You got to fight "
"I don't know how to fight"
"cause she my wife. Plus, she stubborn. All women are good for"
"I just be thankful to lay eyes on her"
"Bright skin"
"Young womens no good these days"
"His mamma stop everything to nurse him"
"They fighting like two mens."
" A girl child aint' safe in a family of men "
"God took it"