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The glue that holds the tiles to Nevin Nollop’s commemorative statue represents the tendency for blind faith to obscure logic and reason. When the tiles begin to fall off of the statue of Nollop, Nate uses analyses from American chemists to show that the tiles are falling solely because the glue is failing. However, the High Island Council ignores this scientific evidence, arguing that Nollop is somehow causing the glue to fail as a sign from beyond the grave. This allows the Council to subsume scientific fact into their own faith-based arguments that Nollop is a supreme deity. In this way, the dissolved glue represents how religion can allow individuals and entities to deny the truth—even proven scientific phenomena. Additionally, the glue’s dissolution parallels how society itself is slowly dissolving, relying less on facts with each new tile that falls and instead increasingly falling under the influence of the Council and their deification of Nollop.
Glue Quotes in Ella Minnow Pea
The Ella Minnow Pea quotes below all refer to the symbol of Glue. 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:
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Chapter 1
Quotes
In so doing Most Senior Council Member Willingham and his four fellow counciliteurs left themselves scant room for the possibility that the tile fell simply because, after one hundred years, whatever fixant had been holding it in place, could simply no longer perform its function. This explanation seemed quite the logical one to me, as well as to my fellow laundresses.
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Chapter 3
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Nollop is not God. Nollop is silent. We must respect that silence and make our decisions and judgments based upon science and fact and simple old-fashioned common sense—a commodity absent for too long from those in governmental elevatia, where its employ would do us all much good.
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Chapter 5
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You’ve given me the scientific reason for why the tiles are falling, Mr. Warren. But might not Nollop be working through the science? Have you ever thought of this? The science, in point of fact, actually serving his specific purposes. Therefore, that of which I must have positive proof—the single fact that I must know for certain is that the Great Nollop isn’t working at all!
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Glue Symbol Timeline in Ella Minnow Pea
The timeline below shows where the symbol Glue appears in Ella Minnow Pea. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...she and her fellow launderesses believed that the tile fell because after 100 years, the glue holding it onto the statue simply failed. She notes, however, that her logic was ignored...
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Chapter 3
...in Georgia have obtained smuggled chips from the fallen tiles: their assessment is that the glue holding the tiles has calcified and that within months, all of the tiles will become...
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Two days later, Tassie writes to Ella about Nate’s findings on the glue, explaining that his analyses “prove beyond doubt and wanton denial that the tiles are falling...
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Chapter 5
...the results of Nate’s meeting with Mr. Lyttle: Nate provided the chemists’ analyses on the glue, but Lyttle countered, “might not Nollop be working through the science?” Nate was dumbfounded by...
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