How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #13
"I'm a student of history, sir," another interrupted with dramatic gestures. "The world moves in a circle like a roulette wheel. In the beginning, black is on top, in the middle epochs, white holds the odds, but soon Ethiopia shall stretch forth her noble wings! Then place our money on the black!" (3.138)
One of the vets at the Golden Day likens the black situation to a game of roulette. Right now the black people are losing, but he predicts that their day will come.
Quote #14
But seriously, because you fail to understand what is happening to you. You cannot see or hear or smell the truth of what you see – and you, looking for destiny! It's classic! And the boy, this automaton, he was made of the very mud of the region and he sees far less than you. Poor stumblers, neither of you can see the other. To you he is a mark on the score-card of your achievement, a thing and not a man; a child, or even less – a black amorphous thing. And you, for all your power are not a man to him, but a God, a force – (3.314)
In the Golden Day, the vet accuses both Mr. Norton and the narrator for feeding the system of racism without thinking of the other race as real people. For all he is as a patient in an insane asylum, the vet has the most insightful commentary on race relations than anyone else in the novel thus far.
Quote #15
"He ordered you. Dammit, white folk are always giving orders, it's a habit with them. Why didn't you make an excuse? Couldn't you say they had sickness – smallpox – or picked another cabin? Why that Trueblood shack? My God, boy! You're black and living in the South – did you forget how to lie?" (6.24)
Dr. Bledsoe is amazed that the narrator hasn't learned how to lie to white folks while seeming to follow their orders. He's finally exposing the truth behind the façade of black obedience – a truth that the naïve narrator hasn't learned yet.