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July’s Mother
Daniel is a young Black man who lives in July’s village and is friends with July. He teaches July to drive the bakkie, and the two of them spend their days working on or hanging around the vehicle in its hiding place outside of the main settlement. Bam teaches Daniel to shoot after Daniel expresses interest in the gun, foreshadowing Daniel’s later decision to steal the gun from its hiding place in the thatched roof of the Smales’ hut. Unlike July, whose loyalty to the Smales family somewhat contradicts his allegiance to his people and Black identity, Daniel is steadfast in his support of Black liberation. At the end of the book, after stealing Bam’s shotgun, Daniel runs away to join the Black fighters.
Daniel Quotes in July’s People
The July’s People quotes below are all either spoken by Daniel or refer to Daniel. 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 9
Quotes
He put the keys in his pocket and walked away. His head moved from side to side like a foreman’s inspecting his workshop or a farmer’s noting work to be done on the lands. He yelled out an instruction to a woman, here, questioned a man mending a bicycle tyre, there, hallooed across the valley to the young man approaching who was his driving instructor, and who was almost always with him, now, in a city youth’s jeans, silent as a bodyguard, with a string of beads resting girlishly round the base of his slender neck.
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Chapter 10
Quotes
He understood, for the first time, that he was a killer. A butcher like any other in rubber boots among the slush of guts, urine and blood at the abattoir, although July and his kin would do the skinning and quartering. The acceptance was a kind of relief he didn’t want to communicate or discuss.
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Chapter 14
Quotes
The chief wanted them to move on; the three children running in and out the hut with their childish sensationalism, their plaints, their brief ecstasies, his wife knocking a nail into her sandal with a stone, and he, shaving outside where there was light. Would tell them to go. What business of the chief’s to tell them where? He had not asked them to come here. A wide arc of the hand: plenty place to go. And this was not their custom, but the civilized one; when a white farmer sold up, or died, the next owner would simply say to the black labourers living and working on the land, born there: go.
Chapter 15
Quotes
The chief had the sharp, impatient, sceptical voice of a man quicker than the people he keeps around him, but knew no white man’s language. Why should he? It was not for him to work as a servant or go down the mines.
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Daniel Quotes in July’s People
The July’s People quotes below are all either spoken by Daniel or refer to Daniel. 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 9
Quotes
He put the keys in his pocket and walked away. His head moved from side to side like a foreman’s inspecting his workshop or a farmer’s noting work to be done on the lands. He yelled out an instruction to a woman, here, questioned a man mending a bicycle tyre, there, hallooed across the valley to the young man approaching who was his driving instructor, and who was almost always with him, now, in a city youth’s jeans, silent as a bodyguard, with a string of beads resting girlishly round the base of his slender neck.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10
Quotes
He understood, for the first time, that he was a killer. A butcher like any other in rubber boots among the slush of guts, urine and blood at the abattoir, although July and his kin would do the skinning and quartering. The acceptance was a kind of relief he didn’t want to communicate or discuss.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14
Quotes
The chief wanted them to move on; the three children running in and out the hut with their childish sensationalism, their plaints, their brief ecstasies, his wife knocking a nail into her sandal with a stone, and he, shaving outside where there was light. Would tell them to go. What business of the chief’s to tell them where? He had not asked them to come here. A wide arc of the hand: plenty place to go. And this was not their custom, but the civilized one; when a white farmer sold up, or died, the next owner would simply say to the black labourers living and working on the land, born there: go.
Chapter 15
Quotes
The chief had the sharp, impatient, sceptical voice of a man quicker than the people he keeps around him, but knew no white man’s language. Why should he? It was not for him to work as a servant or go down the mines.
