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The head of Jeanette’s school. Together with Mrs. Virtue, she corners Jeanette and demands that Jeanette explain why she is terrorizing her classmates with her morbid religious sayings and bizarre understanding of the world. Jeanette attempts to explain to Mrs. Vole that she simply has no other way of seeing things, as her mother has taught her everything she knows based on the Old Testament. Mrs. Vole and Mrs. Virtue essentially throw their hands up in the end, declining to punish Jeanette for her oddities but never helping her to overcome them, to learn as quickly as the other children, or to make friends and fit in.
Mrs. Vole Quotes in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
The Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit quotes below are all either spoken by Mrs. Vole or refer to Mrs. Vole. 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:
).
2. Exodus
Quotes
“Jeanette, we think you may be having problems at school. Do you want to tell us about them?”
“I’m all right.” I shuffled defensively.
“You do seem rather pre-occupied, shall we say, with God. Your sampler, for instance, had a very disturbing motif. And why did you choose to write about hoopoos and rock badgers in your animal book, and in one case, I believe, shrimps?”
“My mother taught me to read,” I told them.
“Your reading skills are quite unusual, but you haven’t answered my question.”
How could I?
My mother had taught me to read from the Book of Deuteronomy because it is full of animals (mostly unclean). Whenever we read “Thou shall not eat any beast that does not chew the cut or part of the hoof” she drew all the creatures mentioned. Horses, bunnies, and little ducks were vague fabulous things, but I knew all about pelicans, rock badgers, sloths and bats. This tendency towards the exotic has brought me many problems.
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Mrs. Vole Quotes in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
The Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit quotes below are all either spoken by Mrs. Vole or refer to Mrs. Vole. 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:
).
2. Exodus
Quotes
“Jeanette, we think you may be having problems at school. Do you want to tell us about them?”
“I’m all right.” I shuffled defensively.
“You do seem rather pre-occupied, shall we say, with God. Your sampler, for instance, had a very disturbing motif. And why did you choose to write about hoopoos and rock badgers in your animal book, and in one case, I believe, shrimps?”
“My mother taught me to read,” I told them.
“Your reading skills are quite unusual, but you haven’t answered my question.”
How could I?
My mother had taught me to read from the Book of Deuteronomy because it is full of animals (mostly unclean). Whenever we read “Thou shall not eat any beast that does not chew the cut or part of the hoof” she drew all the creatures mentioned. Horses, bunnies, and little ducks were vague fabulous things, but I knew all about pelicans, rock badgers, sloths and bats. This tendency towards the exotic has brought me many problems.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
