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Señorita Beatriz
Joël is a friend of Sebastien and Yves, and a fellow Haitian immigrant working in the cane fields. Joël is killed in an automobile accident: Señor Pico, after hearing of the birth of his two children, drives recklessly and strikes Joël, pushing him into a ravine. Afterwards, Señor Pico demonstrates a total lack of remorse, and Joël’s murder goes unpunished by law. Joël’s senseless death foreshadows the intensifying cultural tension between Haitians and Dominicans, and reveals the rampant inequality within the Dominican Republic. Joël’s sudden and unexpected passing also demonstrates how pervasive death can be.
Joël Quotes in The Farming of Bones
The The Farming of Bones quotes below are all either spoken by Joël or refer to Joël . 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 22
Quotes
“Are you certain you don’t want to keep this face for yourself?” I asked.
“I’ve made many,” he said, “for all those who, even when I’m gone, will keep my son in mind. If I could, I would carry them all around my neck, I would, like some men wear their amulets […] The elder of your house, Don Ignacio, he’s not asked again to come and see me, no? […] I’m not surprised,” he said, “that my son has already vanished from his thoughts.”
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Chapter 26
Quotes
“You never believed those people could injure you… Even after they killed Joël, you thought they could never harm you.”
[…] Perhaps I had trusted too much. I had been living inside dreams that would not go away, the memories of an orphaned child. When the present itself was truly frightful, I had perhaps purposely chosen not to see it.
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Joël Quotes in The Farming of Bones
The The Farming of Bones quotes below are all either spoken by Joël or refer to Joël . 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 22
Quotes
“Are you certain you don’t want to keep this face for yourself?” I asked.
“I’ve made many,” he said, “for all those who, even when I’m gone, will keep my son in mind. If I could, I would carry them all around my neck, I would, like some men wear their amulets […] The elder of your house, Don Ignacio, he’s not asked again to come and see me, no? […] I’m not surprised,” he said, “that my son has already vanished from his thoughts.”
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Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26
Quotes
“You never believed those people could injure you… Even after they killed Joël, you thought they could never harm you.”
[…] Perhaps I had trusted too much. I had been living inside dreams that would not go away, the memories of an orphaned child. When the present itself was truly frightful, I had perhaps purposely chosen not to see it.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
