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Harlem Jones
In “Hope,” Millie Lucas is a 14-year-old girl from St. Thomas. She grows up in a rural village in the Cidar Valley with her family, including her mother Mrs. Lucas, her father Mr. Lucas, and her siblings. Millie is a talented seamstress. Though her family doesn’t have much, and though opportunities are scarce in her home region, Millie loves her family and where she’s from. Millie regularly accompanies her father on trips to Kingston, Jamaica to pick up supplies. She frequents the sewing shop of an old woman named Willemina who comes to respect Millie for her obvious knowledge about sewing. On one visit, Willemina asks to take on Millie as an apprentice, implying that she will train Millie to take over the store after she’s too old to run it. Mr. Lucas eagerly plants extra banana crops to finance Millie’s trip to Kingston, earning Millie the nickname “Banana Girl” around the village. Though Millie is grateful for the opportunities her apprenticeship gives her, she’s not sure that running the sewing shop is what she wants out of life. Later that year, Millie meets a young cane cutter, Winston, and they fall in love. They have sex just before Winston is set to return to his home region, and after he leaves, Millie discovers that she’s pregnant. Though Winston writes to Millie every month he’s gone, Willemina, not wanting Millie to let boys and love distract her from her future, intercepts and hides the letters. Millie eventually gives birth to a boy, Eddison William. Not long after, Winston returns to Willemina’s shop to find her. At first, Millie is furious with Winston, thinking he abandoned her. But then Willemina shows Millie the letters (and money) that Winston sent each month, and they seem to reconcile and plan a future together, though the story leaves things ambiguous (Winston expresses his desire for a future with Millie before she shows him their baby, and it’s unclear if he still wants that future after discovering he has a child).
Millie Lucas Quotes in Foreign Soil
The Foreign Soil quotes below are all either spoken by Millie Lucas or refer to Millie Lucas. 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:
).
Hope
Quotes
Mr. Lucas, crooning to his daughter’s future-crop with a deep, velvety calypso as he tended the plot after the rains, noticed the disease when, starting at the outer edges, the jade-green leaves started to yellow. Within two weeks the tiny Panama freckles expanded to dark pockmarks, and the man knew his daughter’s dreams were in trouble.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Millie had heard stories about the root of Aunt Willemina’s wealth. About the wealthy Haitian man with a wife and children who had set her up on the strip with her own sewing shop in her own name when she had been feisty and beautiful. She took the older woman’s speech for half a lifetime of regret.
As Willemina’s health deteriorated, it became clear that the young girl was being groomed to take over the sewing shop. Staffing the shop by day and working on alterations in the early evenings, baby Eddison slung tightly around her chest, Millie never had time to stop and think about whether the shop was the good fortune she had wanted for herself. At least, not until the day Winston turned up again.
Gaps in the Hickory
Quotes
Denver ain’t her no more. He jus the man her best friend Izzy married then split from. He jus somebody she used-a know, long time ago. The real her was born when she came to Orleans. Real her is Delores.
Get the entire Foreign Soil LitChart as a printable PDF.
Millie Lucas Quotes in Foreign Soil
The Foreign Soil quotes below are all either spoken by Millie Lucas or refer to Millie Lucas. 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:
).
Hope
Quotes
Mr. Lucas, crooning to his daughter’s future-crop with a deep, velvety calypso as he tended the plot after the rains, noticed the disease when, starting at the outer edges, the jade-green leaves started to yellow. Within two weeks the tiny Panama freckles expanded to dark pockmarks, and the man knew his daughter’s dreams were in trouble.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Millie had heard stories about the root of Aunt Willemina’s wealth. About the wealthy Haitian man with a wife and children who had set her up on the strip with her own sewing shop in her own name when she had been feisty and beautiful. She took the older woman’s speech for half a lifetime of regret.
As Willemina’s health deteriorated, it became clear that the young girl was being groomed to take over the sewing shop. Staffing the shop by day and working on alterations in the early evenings, baby Eddison slung tightly around her chest, Millie never had time to stop and think about whether the shop was the good fortune she had wanted for herself. At least, not until the day Winston turned up again.
Gaps in the Hickory
Quotes
Denver ain’t her no more. He jus the man her best friend Izzy married then split from. He jus somebody she used-a know, long time ago. The real her was born when she came to Orleans. Real her is Delores.
