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Lorraine
Lisa is Monk’s sister. She’s a doctor at a clinic that provides reproductive healthcare—including abortions—to underprivileged women. As the only sibling still living in D.C., Lisa is forced to manage Mother’s care and finances by herself, a situation she finds unfair. Monk and Lisa don’t have an especially close relationship, but they each love and support the other, even if they don’t always understand where the other is coming from. Unlike Bill, who harbors some resentment over their father’s obvious favoritism toward Monk, Lisa doesn’t hold this against Monk. She even affirms that Father was right to hold Monk in high regard—Monk is special, and she loves him for that. Lisa dies unexpectedly after an anti-abortion protestor fires a shotgun into the clinic. After her death, Monk moves back into Mother’s house to take over her care and finances.
Lisa Quotes in Erasure
The Erasure quotes below are all either spoken by Lisa or refer to Lisa. 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:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
“Have you gone to college?” I asked.
The girl laughed.
“Don’t laugh,” I said. “I think you’re really smart. You should at least try.”
“I didn’t even finish high school.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I scratched my head and looked at the other faces in the room. I felt an inch tall because I had expected this young woman with the blue fingernails to be a certain way, to be slow and stupid, but she was neither. I was the stupid one.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5
Quotes
Poor me! A man without a religion, without a decent lie to call my own. Giving up life for life, loving as I knew I should, and, perhaps most importantly, attempting to live up to the measure of my sister. Time seemed anything but mine, as if I were sleeping, walking and eating with a stopwatch!
Chapter 6
Quotes
I went to what had been my father’s study, and perhaps still was his study, but now it was where I worked. I sat and stared at Juanita Mae Jenkins’ face on Time magazine. [...] I remembered passages of Native Son and The Color Purple and Amos and Andy and my hands began to shake, the world opening around me, tree roots trembling on the ground outside, people in the street shouting dint, ax, fo, screet and fahvre! and I was screaming inside, complaining that I didn’t sound like that, that my mother didn’t sound like that, that my father didn’t sound like that and I imagined myself sitting on a park bench counting the knives in my switchblade collection and a man came up to me and he asked me what I was doing and my mouth opened and I couldn’t help what came out, ‘Why fo you be axin?”
Chapter 11
Quotes
Enemies always understand each other better than friends.
Get the entire Erasure LitChart as a printable PDF.
Lisa Quotes in Erasure
The Erasure quotes below are all either spoken by Lisa or refer to Lisa. 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:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
“Have you gone to college?” I asked.
The girl laughed.
“Don’t laugh,” I said. “I think you’re really smart. You should at least try.”
“I didn’t even finish high school.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I scratched my head and looked at the other faces in the room. I felt an inch tall because I had expected this young woman with the blue fingernails to be a certain way, to be slow and stupid, but she was neither. I was the stupid one.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5
Quotes
Poor me! A man without a religion, without a decent lie to call my own. Giving up life for life, loving as I knew I should, and, perhaps most importantly, attempting to live up to the measure of my sister. Time seemed anything but mine, as if I were sleeping, walking and eating with a stopwatch!
Chapter 6
Quotes
I went to what had been my father’s study, and perhaps still was his study, but now it was where I worked. I sat and stared at Juanita Mae Jenkins’ face on Time magazine. [...] I remembered passages of Native Son and The Color Purple and Amos and Andy and my hands began to shake, the world opening around me, tree roots trembling on the ground outside, people in the street shouting dint, ax, fo, screet and fahvre! and I was screaming inside, complaining that I didn’t sound like that, that my mother didn’t sound like that, that my father didn’t sound like that and I imagined myself sitting on a park bench counting the knives in my switchblade collection and a man came up to me and he asked me what I was doing and my mouth opened and I couldn’t help what came out, ‘Why fo you be axin?”
Chapter 11
Quotes
Enemies always understand each other better than friends.
