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LaTisha Jones
Shirley is Amma’s oldest friend, and the daughter of Barbadian immigrants, Winsome and Clovis. Shirley has always been more conservative than Amma, and in her work as a teacher, she acts as a lawful reformer rather than a radical. Shirley arrives at the Peckham School for Boys and Girls determined to help empower lower-class children of immigrants like herself. Shirley is immediately successful, which causes a rift between Shirley and Penelope Halifax, one of Shirley’s conservative, racist, and jaded coworkers. Shirley’s success leaves her under immense pressure to continue being a great teacher as well as an advocate for Black people everywhere. As the years pass, however, Shirley falters under this pressure and becomes disenchanted by her difficult job, and she starts to view vulnerable, struggling students like LaTisha through the same racist stereotypes as the coworkers she once hated. Meanwhile, she privileges students like Carole who behave and demonstrate potential. Eventually, Shirley becomes close friends and allies with her former nemesis, Penelope. Shirley’s story demonstrates how the pressures to succeed in a white-supremacist society can create internalized racism in oppressed people of color. Shirley is married to Lennox, a kind, attractive, and supportive husband, and they have two daughters together, Rachel and Karen. Lennox is fun and warmhearted compared to Shirley who, as Winsome notes, is perpetually unsatisfied despite her comfortable life. Winsome, a first-generation immigrant, can’t understand how Shirley, who has benefited so greatly from her parents’ hard work and sacrifice, can be so unhappy.
Shirley King Quotes in Girl, Woman, Other
The Girl, Woman, Other quotes below are all either spoken by Shirley King or refer to Shirley King. 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 2: LaTisha
Quotes
Losing her dad the way she did was something LaTisha never talked about; whenever people asked, she told them he’d died of a heart attack
it was easier than explaining what had happened, people thinking there must be something wrong with her and her family
else why would he leave?
she ran wild, hated school, couldn’t concentrate, even Mummy couldn’t control her and she was a social worker, I’m sending you home to Jamaica where they’ll beat some sense into you, LaTisha
yeh, whatevs, I could do with a Caribbean holiday
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3: Shirley
Quotes
Shirley
was praised by the headmaster, Mr. Waverly, as a natural teacher, with an easy rapport with the children, who goes above and beyond the call of duty, achieves excellent exam results with her exemplary teaching skill and who is a credit to her people
in her first annual job assessment
Shirley felt the pressure was now on to be a great teacher and an ambassador
for every black person in the world
when Shirley drove up to the school in the mornings
moments before the inmates charged up the Paupers’ Path to destroy any sense of equilibrium
its monstrous proportions settled in her stomach
like concrete
and as the eighties became history the nineties couldn’t wait to charge in and bring more problems than solutions
more children at school coming from families struggling to cope
more unemployment, poverty, addiction, domestic violence at home
more kids with parents who were ‘inside,’ or should have been
more kids who needed free school meals
more kids who were on the Social Services register or radar
more kids who went feral – (she wasn’t an animal tamer)
Chapter 3: Winsome
Quotes
Shirley
who’s never satisfied with what she has: excellent health, cushy job, hunky husband, lovely daughters and granddaughter, good house and car, no debts, free luxury holiday in the tropics every year
tough life Shirl
compared to Winsome who spent her working life standing on the open platform of a Routemaster bus
bombarded with rain or snow or hailstones
climbing stairs a million times a day with a heavy ticket machine hanging from her neck and big money bag around her waist that got heavier as the journey progressed giving her round shoulders and back problems to this very day
having to deal with non-payers and under-payers who refused to get off de dam bus who cussed her for being a silly cow or a nig nog or a bloody foreigner
she herself is a grateful person
grateful she had Barbados to return home to when her English friends had to stay over there and spend their old age worrying about the cost of heating and whether they’d survive a bad winter
grateful that as soon as she stepped off the plane to walk into the blast of heat, her arthritic joints stopped playing up
haven’t so much as muttered a word of protest since
grateful that the sale of the house in London allowed them to buy this one by the beach
grateful that she and Clovis, now in their eighties, have a reasonable pension, and won’t have to worry about money for the rest of their loves so long as they stay parsimonious, which is true of her generation anyways, who only buy what they need, not what they want
you go into debt to buy a house, not a new dress
Winsome counts her blessings every day and thanks Jesus for bringing her home to a more comfortable life
she thanks Jesus she made new friends with women who’d also returned from America, Canada and Britain and asked her to join their reading group
she was honoured, she’d been a bus conductor, they didn’t mind
Chapter 3: Penelope
Quotes
at first she’d enjoyed teaching the disadvantaged children of the area whose parents had an inter-generational history of paying taxes in this country, even though she knew most of them wouldn’t go on to great things
a supermarket till for the ones who were numerate, a typing pool for those who were numerate and literate, further education for those who could pass exams sufficiently well
she felt a sense of responsibility towards her own kind, and didn’t like it at all when the school’s demography began to change with the immigrants and their offspring pouring in
in the space of a decade the school went from predominately English children of the working classes to a multicultural zoo of kids coming from countries where there weren’t even words for please and thank you
which explained a lot
she loathed that feminism was on the descent, and the vociferous multi-culti brigade was on the ascent, and felt angry all the time, usually at the older boys who were disrespectful and the bullish male teachers who still behaved as if they owned the planet
…
Shirley was barely out of her teaching probation when she took a pot shot at Penelope at that staff meeting all those years ago – at the only woman in the school who dared stand up to the men
why didn’t Saint Shirley attack one of the male chauvinist pigs who pontificated ad infinitum instead of a strong woman who’d brought petitions into work for both the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act, both of which were eventually passed into law
improving the situation for all working women
she should be admired and respected by her female colleagues
Get the entire Girl, Woman, Other LitChart as a printable PDF.
Shirley King Quotes in Girl, Woman, Other
The Girl, Woman, Other quotes below are all either spoken by Shirley King or refer to Shirley King. 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 2: LaTisha
Quotes
Losing her dad the way she did was something LaTisha never talked about; whenever people asked, she told them he’d died of a heart attack
it was easier than explaining what had happened, people thinking there must be something wrong with her and her family
else why would he leave?
she ran wild, hated school, couldn’t concentrate, even Mummy couldn’t control her and she was a social worker, I’m sending you home to Jamaica where they’ll beat some sense into you, LaTisha
yeh, whatevs, I could do with a Caribbean holiday
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3: Shirley
Quotes
Shirley
was praised by the headmaster, Mr. Waverly, as a natural teacher, with an easy rapport with the children, who goes above and beyond the call of duty, achieves excellent exam results with her exemplary teaching skill and who is a credit to her people
in her first annual job assessment
Shirley felt the pressure was now on to be a great teacher and an ambassador
for every black person in the world
when Shirley drove up to the school in the mornings
moments before the inmates charged up the Paupers’ Path to destroy any sense of equilibrium
its monstrous proportions settled in her stomach
like concrete
and as the eighties became history the nineties couldn’t wait to charge in and bring more problems than solutions
more children at school coming from families struggling to cope
more unemployment, poverty, addiction, domestic violence at home
more kids with parents who were ‘inside,’ or should have been
more kids who needed free school meals
more kids who were on the Social Services register or radar
more kids who went feral – (she wasn’t an animal tamer)
Chapter 3: Winsome
Quotes
Shirley
who’s never satisfied with what she has: excellent health, cushy job, hunky husband, lovely daughters and granddaughter, good house and car, no debts, free luxury holiday in the tropics every year
tough life Shirl
compared to Winsome who spent her working life standing on the open platform of a Routemaster bus
bombarded with rain or snow or hailstones
climbing stairs a million times a day with a heavy ticket machine hanging from her neck and big money bag around her waist that got heavier as the journey progressed giving her round shoulders and back problems to this very day
having to deal with non-payers and under-payers who refused to get off de dam bus who cussed her for being a silly cow or a nig nog or a bloody foreigner
she herself is a grateful person
grateful she had Barbados to return home to when her English friends had to stay over there and spend their old age worrying about the cost of heating and whether they’d survive a bad winter
grateful that as soon as she stepped off the plane to walk into the blast of heat, her arthritic joints stopped playing up
haven’t so much as muttered a word of protest since
grateful that the sale of the house in London allowed them to buy this one by the beach
grateful that she and Clovis, now in their eighties, have a reasonable pension, and won’t have to worry about money for the rest of their loves so long as they stay parsimonious, which is true of her generation anyways, who only buy what they need, not what they want
you go into debt to buy a house, not a new dress
Winsome counts her blessings every day and thanks Jesus for bringing her home to a more comfortable life
she thanks Jesus she made new friends with women who’d also returned from America, Canada and Britain and asked her to join their reading group
she was honoured, she’d been a bus conductor, they didn’t mind
Chapter 3: Penelope
Quotes
at first she’d enjoyed teaching the disadvantaged children of the area whose parents had an inter-generational history of paying taxes in this country, even though she knew most of them wouldn’t go on to great things
a supermarket till for the ones who were numerate, a typing pool for those who were numerate and literate, further education for those who could pass exams sufficiently well
she felt a sense of responsibility towards her own kind, and didn’t like it at all when the school’s demography began to change with the immigrants and their offspring pouring in
in the space of a decade the school went from predominately English children of the working classes to a multicultural zoo of kids coming from countries where there weren’t even words for please and thank you
which explained a lot
she loathed that feminism was on the descent, and the vociferous multi-culti brigade was on the ascent, and felt angry all the time, usually at the older boys who were disrespectful and the bullish male teachers who still behaved as if they owned the planet
…
Shirley was barely out of her teaching probation when she took a pot shot at Penelope at that staff meeting all those years ago – at the only woman in the school who dared stand up to the men
why didn’t Saint Shirley attack one of the male chauvinist pigs who pontificated ad infinitum instead of a strong woman who’d brought petitions into work for both the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act, both of which were eventually passed into law
improving the situation for all working women
she should be admired and respected by her female colleagues
