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Trudy is a plump, coarse white woman who dyes her hair black and wears red lipstick. She is a registered child minder in Adah’s first neighborhood in London; Adah starts taking Titi and Vicky to her when there are no nursery spots available for the children. When Titi stops speaking after several weeks at Trudy’s, Adah becomes suspicious and drops by the house during the day. She finds Trudy’s daughters playing with Titi and Vicky’s toys, Trudy entertaining a possible sex-work client, and Titi and Vicky left unsupervised in Trudy’s filthy, garbage-strewn back yard. Though Adah tries to report Trudy to the local child officer Miss Stirling, Trudy lies to Miss Stirling about the events in question—shocking Adah, who realizes for the first time that some white people lie just like some Black people do. As such, Trudy expands Adah’s racial consciousness by making very clear to hear that white people have no grounds for claiming racial superiority. Adah keeps taking Titi and Vicky to Trudy’s only because Trudy promises to do better and Adah has no other childcare options. When Vicky contracts viral meningitis, Adah immediate suspects that Trudy’s unhygienic backyard is to blame. She plans to confront Trudy, and when Francis expresses shock at the plan, she accuses him of having sex with Trudy and threatens to kill them both if Vicky dies. Adah later confronts Trudy, and Trudy immediately claims that Vicky must have caught viral meningitis in Nigeria. Adah, outraged, tries to hit Trudy and threatens to murder her. Later that same day, when Miss Stirling sees Trudy’s filthy house, she immediately offers Titi and Vicky nursery spots. Trudy loses her child-minding license and, perhaps frightened by Adah’s threats, moves neighborhoods.
Trudy Quotes in Second Class Citizen
The Second Class Citizen quotes below are all either spoken by Trudy or refer to Trudy. 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 4: The Daily Minders
Quotes
Adah could not stop thinking about her discovery that whites were just as fallible as everyone else. There were bad whites and good whites, just as there were bad blacks and good blacks! Why, then did they claim to be superior?
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Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5: An Expensive Lesson
Quotes
She told herself to stop being over-romantic and soft. No husband would have time to ask his pregnant wife how she was feeling so early in the morning. That only happened in True Stories and True Romances, not in real life, particularly not with Francis for that matter. But despite the hard talking to herself, she still yearned to be loved, to feel really married, to be cared for.
Among her people, she could have killed Trudy, and other mothers would have stood solidly behind her. Now, she was not even given the joy of knocking senseless this fat, loose-fleshed woman with dyed hair and pussy-cat eyes. She belonged to the nation of people who had introduced “law and order.”
Chapter 9: Learning the Rules
Quotes
“I brought my children here to save them from the clutches of your family, and, God help me, they are going back as different people; never, never are they going to be the type of person you are. My sons will learn to treat their wives as people, individuals, not like goats that have been taught to talk.”
Chapter 10: Applying the Rules
Quotes
At least some of the provisions of the Welfare State worked for both second- and first-class citizens alike.
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Trudy Quotes in Second Class Citizen
The Second Class Citizen quotes below are all either spoken by Trudy or refer to Trudy. 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 4: The Daily Minders
Quotes
Adah could not stop thinking about her discovery that whites were just as fallible as everyone else. There were bad whites and good whites, just as there were bad blacks and good blacks! Why, then did they claim to be superior?
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5: An Expensive Lesson
Quotes
She told herself to stop being over-romantic and soft. No husband would have time to ask his pregnant wife how she was feeling so early in the morning. That only happened in True Stories and True Romances, not in real life, particularly not with Francis for that matter. But despite the hard talking to herself, she still yearned to be loved, to feel really married, to be cared for.
Among her people, she could have killed Trudy, and other mothers would have stood solidly behind her. Now, she was not even given the joy of knocking senseless this fat, loose-fleshed woman with dyed hair and pussy-cat eyes. She belonged to the nation of people who had introduced “law and order.”
Chapter 9: Learning the Rules
Quotes
“I brought my children here to save them from the clutches of your family, and, God help me, they are going back as different people; never, never are they going to be the type of person you are. My sons will learn to treat their wives as people, individuals, not like goats that have been taught to talk.”
Chapter 10: Applying the Rules
Quotes
At least some of the provisions of the Welfare State worked for both second- and first-class citizens alike.
