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Mae
Mrs. Scott is the white forewoman at the plant at which Johnson works. When he arrives late she verbally attacks him, using racial slurs and suggesting that African American workers are the problem with the plant, even though she also says that “half this shift comes in late.” This renders her an unsympathetic character, but there is some suggestion that she is also struggling with social pressures as a woman in a male-dominated workplace. Johnson himself reveals some hostility to the idea of a woman doing her job and responds to her racial antagonism with physical intimidation. Mrs. Scott reacts fearfully to Johnson’s intimidation and leaves him alone for the rest of his shift.
Mrs. Scott Quotes in Like a Winding Sheet
The Like a Winding Sheet quotes below are all either spoken by Mrs. Scott or refer to Mrs. Scott . 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:
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Like a Winding Sheet
Quotes
He never could remember to refer to her as the forelady even in his mind. It was funny to have a white woman for a boss in a plant like this one.
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“Excuses. You guys always got excuses,” her anger grew and spread. “Every guy comes in here late always has an excuse. His wife’s sick or his grandmother died or somebody in the family had to go to the hospital,” she paused, drew a deep breath. “And the niggers is the worse. I don’t care what’s wrong with your legs. You get in here on time. I’m sick of you niggers—”
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“You got the right to get mad,” he interrupted softly. “You got the right to cuss me four ways to Sunday but I ain’t letting nobody call me a nigger.”
He stepped closer to her. His fists were doubled. His lips were drawn back in a thin narrow line. A vein in his forehead stood out swollen, thick.
And the woman backed away from him, not hurriedly but slowly—two, three steps back.
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And he thought he should have hit her anyway, smacked her hard in the face, felt the soft flesh of her face give under the hardness of his hands. He tried to make his hands relax by offering them a description of what it would have been like to strike her because he had the queer feeling that his hands were not exactly a part of him anymore—they had developed a separate life of their own over which he had no control.
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Mrs. Scott Quotes in Like a Winding Sheet
The Like a Winding Sheet quotes below are all either spoken by Mrs. Scott or refer to Mrs. Scott . 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:
).
Like a Winding Sheet
Quotes
He never could remember to refer to her as the forelady even in his mind. It was funny to have a white woman for a boss in a plant like this one.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“Excuses. You guys always got excuses,” her anger grew and spread. “Every guy comes in here late always has an excuse. His wife’s sick or his grandmother died or somebody in the family had to go to the hospital,” she paused, drew a deep breath. “And the niggers is the worse. I don’t care what’s wrong with your legs. You get in here on time. I’m sick of you niggers—”
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Explanation and Analysis:
“You got the right to get mad,” he interrupted softly. “You got the right to cuss me four ways to Sunday but I ain’t letting nobody call me a nigger.”
He stepped closer to her. His fists were doubled. His lips were drawn back in a thin narrow line. A vein in his forehead stood out swollen, thick.
And the woman backed away from him, not hurriedly but slowly—two, three steps back.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
And he thought he should have hit her anyway, smacked her hard in the face, felt the soft flesh of her face give under the hardness of his hands. He tried to make his hands relax by offering them a description of what it would have been like to strike her because he had the queer feeling that his hands were not exactly a part of him anymore—they had developed a separate life of their own over which he had no control.
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