How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"Lots of boys would like to be mail messenger, yessir. But I don't know how much they'd like it when the snow's high as old Mr. Primo Carnera, and the wind's blowing blue-hard, and those sacks came sailing—Ugh! Wham!" (1.233)
Sadie Pruitt is one of the few women in the book with a very non-traditional job. At seventy-five, she's tackling mail sacks as they fly off the trains speeding by. She's a widow, so maybe we can give her a break on that basis—she needs to work and took any job she could get.
Quote #8
She is a gaunt, trouser-wearing, woolen-shirted, cowboy-booted ginger-colored, gingerly-tempered woman of unrevealed age ("That's for me to know, and you to guess.") but promptly revealed opinions, most of which are announced in a voice of rooster-crow altitude and penetration. (1.234)
Myrtle's a pretty colorful character, too. She's Sadie Pruitt's daughter, and she's inherited her mother's lack of concern for what people think about her. They've lived in Holcomb since before it was called Holcomb and they'll do what they please. They're not that central to the story, but Capote includes them as a contrast to the more traditional women we've met up until this point.
Quote #9
Perry felt sorry for Inez. She was such a "stupid kid"—she really believed that Dick meant to marry her, and had no idea he was planning to leave Mexico that afternoon. (2.21)
All bets are off when it comes to the lowest rungs of society. Survival trumps anything. The women in Dick and Perry's life do what they have to do to get by—and this often includes sex. It's interesting that the only women who we see having a sex life are lower-class women. Did only Dick and Perry offer this info? Did Capote not think it was OK to ask anyone else? Bonnie and Herb's sexual problems are hinted at but not explored.