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A middle-aged African-American craftsman who runs a boarding house with his wife, Bertha. Seth is a straightforward thinker, a man inclined to follow rules and work hard even when he’s receiving unfair treatment. Skilled at fashioning pots and pans, he dreams of teaching a small group of men his craft and opening his own shop instead of working for rich white men. Because of his deep sense of pragmatism, he’s highly suspicious of the folk magic that Bynum, one of his residents, practices in the yard. To this end, he constantly criticizes the old man for bringing nonsense into his home. Similarly, he makes it clear to all his residents that he won’t tolerate anything under his roof that might make the house seem unworthy of respect. This is why he so vehemently dislikes Herald Loomis, whom he mistrusts partly because Loomis is looking for a woman he claims is his wife. As it so happens, Seth knows the woman he’s looking for—for the past several years, she has been going by Martha Pentecost, but Seth decides not to tell Loomis this because he doesn’t know what Loomis intends to do when he finds her. When Loomis speaks out against Christianity one night and then proceeds to speak in tongues and fall to the floor while having a frightening vision, Seth decides once and for all to kick him out. Because Loomis has already paid through the week, though, Seth has to let him stay. Even still, he reminds the poor man on a daily basis that he will need to pack up and leave at the end of the week.
Seth Holly Quotes in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
The Joe Turner’s Come and Gone quotes below are all either spoken by Seth Holly or refer to Seth Holly. 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:
).
The Play
Quotes
SETH: […] All that old mumbo jumbo nonsense. I don’t know why I put up with it.
BERTHA: You don’t say nothing when he bless the house.
SETH: I just go along with that ’cause of you. You around here sprinkling salt all over the place…got pennies lined up across the threshold…all that heebie jeebie stuff. I just put up with that ’cause of you. I don’t pay that kind of stuff no mind. And you going down there to the church and wanna come come [sic] home and sprinkle salt all over the place.
BERTHA: It don’t hurt none. I can’t say if it help…but it don’t hurt none.
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Act One: Scene One
Quotes
These niggers coming up here with that old backward country style of living. It’s hard enough now without all that ignorant kind of acting. Ever since slavery got over with there ain’t been nothing but foolish-acting niggers. Word get out they need men to work in the mill and put in these roads…and niggers drop everything and head North looking for freedom. They don’t know the white fellows looking too. White fellows coming from all over the world. White fellow come over and in six months got more than what I got. But these niggers keep on coming. Walking…riding…carrying their Bibles. That boy done carried a guitar all the way from North Carolina. What he gonna find out? What he gonna do with that guitar? This the city.
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JEREMY: It didn’t make no sense to me. I don’t make but eight dollars. Why I got to give him fifty cents of it? He go around to all the colored and he got ten dollars extra. That’s more than I make for a whole week.
SETH: I see you gonna learn the hard way. You just looking at the facts of it. See, right now, without the job, you ain’t got nothing. What you gonna do when you can’t keep a roof over your head? Right now, come Saturday, unless you come up with another two dollars, you gonna be out there in the streets. Down up under one of them bridges trying to put some food in your belly and wishing you had given that fellow that fifty cents.
JEREMY: Don’t make me no difference. There’s a big road out there. I can get my guitar and always find me another place to stay. I ain’t planning on staying in one place for too long noway.
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Seth Holly Quotes in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
The Joe Turner’s Come and Gone quotes below are all either spoken by Seth Holly or refer to Seth Holly. 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:
).
The Play
Quotes
SETH: […] All that old mumbo jumbo nonsense. I don’t know why I put up with it.
BERTHA: You don’t say nothing when he bless the house.
SETH: I just go along with that ’cause of you. You around here sprinkling salt all over the place…got pennies lined up across the threshold…all that heebie jeebie stuff. I just put up with that ’cause of you. I don’t pay that kind of stuff no mind. And you going down there to the church and wanna come come [sic] home and sprinkle salt all over the place.
BERTHA: It don’t hurt none. I can’t say if it help…but it don’t hurt none.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Act One: Scene One
Quotes
These niggers coming up here with that old backward country style of living. It’s hard enough now without all that ignorant kind of acting. Ever since slavery got over with there ain’t been nothing but foolish-acting niggers. Word get out they need men to work in the mill and put in these roads…and niggers drop everything and head North looking for freedom. They don’t know the white fellows looking too. White fellows coming from all over the world. White fellow come over and in six months got more than what I got. But these niggers keep on coming. Walking…riding…carrying their Bibles. That boy done carried a guitar all the way from North Carolina. What he gonna find out? What he gonna do with that guitar? This the city.
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JEREMY: It didn’t make no sense to me. I don’t make but eight dollars. Why I got to give him fifty cents of it? He go around to all the colored and he got ten dollars extra. That’s more than I make for a whole week.
SETH: I see you gonna learn the hard way. You just looking at the facts of it. See, right now, without the job, you ain’t got nothing. What you gonna do when you can’t keep a roof over your head? Right now, come Saturday, unless you come up with another two dollars, you gonna be out there in the streets. Down up under one of them bridges trying to put some food in your belly and wishing you had given that fellow that fifty cents.
JEREMY: Don’t make me no difference. There’s a big road out there. I can get my guitar and always find me another place to stay. I ain’t planning on staying in one place for too long noway.
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