Quotes

Throughout the book, I picked out a few quotes that I found interesting. Now, I will explain to you why they caught my attention and what they mean.


"Then Mr. Small told how he bolted across the street and discovered that Miss Pettigrew, although noticeably dead, did not appear disfigured or brutalized at all except for the scratches from the rose thorns, and he said it was next to miraculous to him how Miss Pettigrew’s hat had managed to remain in its proper place atop her head." Pg. 57

Right after Miss Pettigrew falls off the water tower, Mr. Small discovers that she is dead. Mr. Small tells of Miss Pettigrew’s condition to Louis Benfield and his father when they come to check out the scene. It is weird that Miss Pettigrew is found in this condition after such a hard and brutal fall from the tower. I believe that her condition after the fall shows how elegant and glorious she actually is. Throughout the beginning of the book, Pearson describes the Pettigrew family as fancy, rich, and elegant. By making Miss Pettigrew “presentable,” when she should be mangled and disfigured, he is showing that even after inflicting such a horrible death upon herself, she is and always will be the elegant Miss Pettigrew of the Pettigrew fortune because it is what is was born into.


"Most people suppose you have to be weak and cowardly to take your own life; Daddy said that you had to be brave. He didn’t see any other way for a man to bugger fate except by his own hand, and I always got the feeling Daddy would have tried it himself if he didn’t have to die from it. The idea was really all he was warm to." Pg. 54

This is being thought by Louis Benfield after a lot of the people of Neely commit suicide. He remembers of how Daddy “had a soft spot for suicide” and how daddy would tell him stories of Romans and Greeks killing themselves. With all the people dying in the town of Neely, Daddy thinks about how brave all these people are. Others in town think it is a weakness and a breaking point after losing sanity. I think that this quote shows that Daddy is different from others in the way that he thinks and that he understands things about people that others do not.


“I didn’t think the old girl had it in her.” Pg. 55

Daddy says this to Momma and Louis right after Miss Pettigrew commits suicide. Daddy always thought someone had to be brave to kill themselves. It seems to me that Daddy is actually very proud of Miss Pettigrew, who was sort of insane yet very elegant. He probably never expected someone of that much class and grace to do something of that matter. He actually seems very happy for Miss Pettigrew, not because he wanted her dead but because he now knows that Miss Pettigrew was a strong and brave person, willing to do something about her life by taking it herself.

"Miss Pettigrew had been beautiful until she got old and wasn’t beautiful anymore and then she had become merely elegant. That’s where she was when she took the pot of geraniums off the stump and climbed up onto it herself, and Momma and all the women of Neely suffered a kind of defeat that afternoon because they themselves were not elegant, did not lead elegant lives, and required for their own satisfaction that miss Pettigrew do it for them." Pg. 29

This is the quote that starts to tell of Miss Pettigrew's insane behavior. Miss Pettigrew was the most elegant person in the town and other women envied her elegance. Then one day when Miss Pettigrew ties a bed sheet around her neck and stands on a stump, people start to realize that she has become insane and is no longer the elegant aristocrat that people once knew her to be. All the women relied on Miss Pettigrew to be elegant for the whole town and an insane lady can not be someone who is looked up to for elegance. Therefore all the women's hopes in having someone elegant enough for the whole town dwindle.