An American Marriage

by

Tayari Jones

Celestial Davenport Character Analysis

Raised in Atlanta by wealthy parents Gloria and Franklin Davenport, Celestial is married to Roy at the beginning of the novel and is also the lifelong best friend of Andre, who lives next door to the couple in Atlanta. Celestial is a burgeoning artist who often makes dolls that draw from her husband’s likeness. Soon after Roy is sent to prison, Celestial discovers she is pregnant; she and Roy decide it would be best to terminate the pregnancy. She later reveals in a letter to Roy that this is her second abortion, having been impregnated by one of her college professors at Howard University before transferring to Spelman College—incidentally, where she was originally introduced to Roy through Andre. Though she tries to remain faithful to and supportive of her husband throughout his sentence, as she grows more focused on her blossoming artistic career she becomes lax in her visits and letters to Roy. When Roy eventually questions Celestial’s dedication to him, she tells him she can no longer be his wife but also does not file for divorce. She becomes romantically involved with and eventually engaged to Andre. Though Celestial considers trying to remain married to Roy after he is released, both realize that too much has changed between them in the time Roy has been away. She and Andre remain together, though unmarried, and Celestial is pregnant at the end of the novel.

Celestial Davenport Quotes in An American Marriage

The An American Marriage quotes below are all either spoken by Celestial Davenport or refer to Celestial Davenport. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Love and Marriage in Crisis Theme Icon
).
Part 1, Chapter 2 Quotes

Memory is a queer creature, an eccentric curator. I still look back on that night, although not as often as I once did. How long can you live with your face twisted over your shoulder? No matter what people may say, this was not a failure to remember. I’m not sure it is a failure at all.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

Did we love so forcefully that night because we knew or because we didn’t? Was there an alarm from the future, a furious bell without its clapper? Did this hopeless bell manage to generate a breeze, causing me to reach to the floor to find my slip and use it to cover myself? Did some subtle warning cause Roy to turn and pin me to his side with his heavy arm?

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 34
Explanation and Analysis:

But what is real? Was it our uneventful first impression? Or the day in New York, of all places, where we found each other once again? Or did things “get real” when we married, or was it the day that the prosecutor in a little nowhere town declared Roy to be a flight risk? The state declared that though he may have roots in Louisiana, his home was in Atlanta, so he was held without bond or bail. At this pronouncement, Roy spat out a caustic laugh. “So now roots are irrelevant?”

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:

Sleeping by myself didn’t kill me then and will not kill me now. But this is what loss has taught me of love. Our house isn’t simply empty, our home has been emptied. Love makes a place in your life, it makes a place for itself in your bed. Invisibly, it makes a place in your body, rerouting all your blood vessels, throbbing right alongside your heart. When it’s gone, nothing is whole again.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 41
Explanation and Analysis:

Am I different? It has been close to three years, so I guess I have changed. Yesterday I sat under the hickory tree in the front yard. It’s the only place where I find rest and just feel fine. I know fine isn’t a lot, but it’s rare for me these days. Even when I’m happy, there is something in between me and whatever good news comes my way. It’s like eating a butterscotch still sealed in a wrapper. The tree is untouched by whatever worries we humans fret over. I think about how it was here before I was born and it will be here after we’re all gone. Maybe this should make me sad, but it doesn’t.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Related Symbols: Old Hickey
Page Number: 80
Explanation and Analysis:

Dear Celestial,

I am innocent.

Dear Roy,

I am innocent, too.

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Celestial Davenport (speaker)
Page Number: 84
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 1 Quotes

Grandmamma would tell Evie to hush and remind her that getting left by a man was not the worst thing that ever happened to somebody. And Evie would say, “It’s the worst thing that ever happened to me.” She said it so much that she came down with lupus. “God wanted me to see what misery really was,” Evie said. I didn’t like all this God talk, like He was up there toying with us. I preferred more of the tenderness and acceptance my grandmother promised in her hymns. I told this to Evie when I was a little boy and she said, “You got to work with the god you were given.”

You also have to work with the love you are given, with all of the complications clanging behind it like tin cans tied to a bridal sedan.

Related Characters: Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Celestial Davenport, Carlos , Evie
Page Number: 102-103
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 2 Quotes

“I’m ready. But I can’t lie. Sometimes I feel guilty as hell for just being able to live my life.”

I didn’t have to tell him that I understood, because he knew that I did. There should be a word for this, the way it feels to steal something that’s already yours.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Franklin Davenport
Page Number: 115
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 4 Quotes

When I was twenty-four, living in New York City, I thought maybe black love went that way, too, integrated into extinction.

Nikki Giovanni said, “Black love is Black wealth.”

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 135
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 6 Quotes

We laughed, a real laugh, a shared laugh. This is when our life changed. We came to each other with joy on our lips. What came next may not have been legally binding; there was no clergyman or witness. But it was ours.

Related Characters: Andre (speaker), Celestial Davenport
Page Number: 159
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 10 Quotes

Now Mr. Davenport was loyal to Roy above his own daughter. In a way, the whole black race was loyal to Roy, a man just down from the cross.

Related Characters: Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Celestial Davenport, Franklin Davenport
Page Number: 192
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 12 Quotes

“Is it love, or is it convenience?” Gloria asked me that Thanksgiving Day after my father had stormed upstairs and Andre went to gather our coats. She explained that convenience, habit, comfort, obligation—these are all things that wear the same clothing as love sometimes. Did I think this thing with Andre was maybe too easy? He is literally the boy next door.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Andre, Gloria Davenport
Page Number: 208
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 5 Quotes

The son that Celestial and I didn’t have would have been four or five, I think. If a kindergartener slept in the backroom, there is no way Celestial would be talking about how she’s with Andre now. I would say, “A boy need his father.” This is a scientific fact. There wouldn’t be anything else to talk about.

But as things were, there was a lot to talk about, more words than could fit into my mouth.

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Celestial Davenport, Andre
Page Number: 244
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 6 Quotes

“I accidentally killed a man,” he told me. “I’ve been through a lot, Celestial. Even if you go in innocent, you don’t come out that way. So, please?”

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Celestial Davenport (speaker)
Page Number: 248
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 9 Quotes

All I wanted to take with me was my tooth. For years, I stored it in a velvet box, like what a ring comes in. I couldn’t tell her because she would think that I was being sentimental, that I was turning the memory of our first date over in my mouth like a mint. She wouldn’t understand that I couldn’t leave without the rest of my body.

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Celestial Davenport
Related Symbols: Roy’s Tooth
Page Number: 261
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 10 Quotes

But I was sorry. Not for what was between Celestial and me, I would never regret that. I was sorry for a lot of things. I was sorry for Evie, suffering from lupus for so many years. I was sorry for elephants killed for their ivory. I was sorry for Carlos, who traded one family for another. I was sorry for everyone in the world because we all had to die and nobody knew what happened after that. I was sorry for Celestial, who was probably watching from the window. Most of all, I was sorry for Roy. The last time I saw him on that morning before his mother’s wake, he said, “I never had a chance, did I? I only thought I did.”

Related Characters: Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Celestial Davenport, Carlos , Evie
Page Number: 278
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 11 Quotes

But he only turned toward Old Hickey. “It’s too much.” Then quickly—it must have been quickly—but I somehow took notice of each move, Roy tucked his lips against his teeth, gripped the tree like a brother, and then tipped his head back, presenting his face to the sky before driving his forehead against the ancient bark. The sound was muted, like the wet crack of an egg against the kitchen floor. He did it again, harder this time.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Andre
Related Symbols: Old Hickey
Page Number: 282
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire An American Marriage LitChart as a printable PDF.
An American Marriage PDF

Celestial Davenport Quotes in An American Marriage

The An American Marriage quotes below are all either spoken by Celestial Davenport or refer to Celestial Davenport. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Love and Marriage in Crisis Theme Icon
).
Part 1, Chapter 2 Quotes

Memory is a queer creature, an eccentric curator. I still look back on that night, although not as often as I once did. How long can you live with your face twisted over your shoulder? No matter what people may say, this was not a failure to remember. I’m not sure it is a failure at all.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

Did we love so forcefully that night because we knew or because we didn’t? Was there an alarm from the future, a furious bell without its clapper? Did this hopeless bell manage to generate a breeze, causing me to reach to the floor to find my slip and use it to cover myself? Did some subtle warning cause Roy to turn and pin me to his side with his heavy arm?

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 34
Explanation and Analysis:

But what is real? Was it our uneventful first impression? Or the day in New York, of all places, where we found each other once again? Or did things “get real” when we married, or was it the day that the prosecutor in a little nowhere town declared Roy to be a flight risk? The state declared that though he may have roots in Louisiana, his home was in Atlanta, so he was held without bond or bail. At this pronouncement, Roy spat out a caustic laugh. “So now roots are irrelevant?”

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:

Sleeping by myself didn’t kill me then and will not kill me now. But this is what loss has taught me of love. Our house isn’t simply empty, our home has been emptied. Love makes a place in your life, it makes a place for itself in your bed. Invisibly, it makes a place in your body, rerouting all your blood vessels, throbbing right alongside your heart. When it’s gone, nothing is whole again.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 41
Explanation and Analysis:

Am I different? It has been close to three years, so I guess I have changed. Yesterday I sat under the hickory tree in the front yard. It’s the only place where I find rest and just feel fine. I know fine isn’t a lot, but it’s rare for me these days. Even when I’m happy, there is something in between me and whatever good news comes my way. It’s like eating a butterscotch still sealed in a wrapper. The tree is untouched by whatever worries we humans fret over. I think about how it was here before I was born and it will be here after we’re all gone. Maybe this should make me sad, but it doesn’t.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Related Symbols: Old Hickey
Page Number: 80
Explanation and Analysis:

Dear Celestial,

I am innocent.

Dear Roy,

I am innocent, too.

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Celestial Davenport (speaker)
Page Number: 84
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 1 Quotes

Grandmamma would tell Evie to hush and remind her that getting left by a man was not the worst thing that ever happened to somebody. And Evie would say, “It’s the worst thing that ever happened to me.” She said it so much that she came down with lupus. “God wanted me to see what misery really was,” Evie said. I didn’t like all this God talk, like He was up there toying with us. I preferred more of the tenderness and acceptance my grandmother promised in her hymns. I told this to Evie when I was a little boy and she said, “You got to work with the god you were given.”

You also have to work with the love you are given, with all of the complications clanging behind it like tin cans tied to a bridal sedan.

Related Characters: Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Celestial Davenport, Carlos , Evie
Page Number: 102-103
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 2 Quotes

“I’m ready. But I can’t lie. Sometimes I feel guilty as hell for just being able to live my life.”

I didn’t have to tell him that I understood, because he knew that I did. There should be a word for this, the way it feels to steal something that’s already yours.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Franklin Davenport
Page Number: 115
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 4 Quotes

When I was twenty-four, living in New York City, I thought maybe black love went that way, too, integrated into extinction.

Nikki Giovanni said, “Black love is Black wealth.”

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 135
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 6 Quotes

We laughed, a real laugh, a shared laugh. This is when our life changed. We came to each other with joy on our lips. What came next may not have been legally binding; there was no clergyman or witness. But it was ours.

Related Characters: Andre (speaker), Celestial Davenport
Page Number: 159
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 10 Quotes

Now Mr. Davenport was loyal to Roy above his own daughter. In a way, the whole black race was loyal to Roy, a man just down from the cross.

Related Characters: Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Celestial Davenport, Franklin Davenport
Page Number: 192
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 12 Quotes

“Is it love, or is it convenience?” Gloria asked me that Thanksgiving Day after my father had stormed upstairs and Andre went to gather our coats. She explained that convenience, habit, comfort, obligation—these are all things that wear the same clothing as love sometimes. Did I think this thing with Andre was maybe too easy? He is literally the boy next door.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Andre, Gloria Davenport
Page Number: 208
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 5 Quotes

The son that Celestial and I didn’t have would have been four or five, I think. If a kindergartener slept in the backroom, there is no way Celestial would be talking about how she’s with Andre now. I would say, “A boy need his father.” This is a scientific fact. There wouldn’t be anything else to talk about.

But as things were, there was a lot to talk about, more words than could fit into my mouth.

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Celestial Davenport, Andre
Page Number: 244
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 6 Quotes

“I accidentally killed a man,” he told me. “I’ve been through a lot, Celestial. Even if you go in innocent, you don’t come out that way. So, please?”

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Celestial Davenport (speaker)
Page Number: 248
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 9 Quotes

All I wanted to take with me was my tooth. For years, I stored it in a velvet box, like what a ring comes in. I couldn’t tell her because she would think that I was being sentimental, that I was turning the memory of our first date over in my mouth like a mint. She wouldn’t understand that I couldn’t leave without the rest of my body.

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Celestial Davenport
Related Symbols: Roy’s Tooth
Page Number: 261
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 10 Quotes

But I was sorry. Not for what was between Celestial and me, I would never regret that. I was sorry for a lot of things. I was sorry for Evie, suffering from lupus for so many years. I was sorry for elephants killed for their ivory. I was sorry for Carlos, who traded one family for another. I was sorry for everyone in the world because we all had to die and nobody knew what happened after that. I was sorry for Celestial, who was probably watching from the window. Most of all, I was sorry for Roy. The last time I saw him on that morning before his mother’s wake, he said, “I never had a chance, did I? I only thought I did.”

Related Characters: Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Celestial Davenport, Carlos , Evie
Page Number: 278
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 11 Quotes

But he only turned toward Old Hickey. “It’s too much.” Then quickly—it must have been quickly—but I somehow took notice of each move, Roy tucked his lips against his teeth, gripped the tree like a brother, and then tipped his head back, presenting his face to the sky before driving his forehead against the ancient bark. The sound was muted, like the wet crack of an egg against the kitchen floor. He did it again, harder this time.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Andre
Related Symbols: Old Hickey
Page Number: 282
Explanation and Analysis: