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Mrs. Strickland
Ata is a 17-year-old Tahitian girl. She is a distant relative of hotel-owner Tiaré Johnson. While Ata is working at Tiaré’s hotel, Tiaré notices that Ata has a crush on Charles Strickland, a middle-aged English painter who sometimes eats and plays chess at the hotel. Tiaré suggests that Ata and Strickland get married, selling Strickland on the idea by mentioning that Ata owns some rural property where Strickland could paint. Though Strickland tells Ata that he’ll beat her, Ata replies, “How else should I know you loved me?” After a month of trial cohabitation, they marry and move to Ata’s rural property. They have two children together, though one dies. When Strickland contracts leprosy three years into their marriage, Ata vehemently insists on staying with him even when he suggests that she could leave him and remarry. Strickland—despite his usual distaste for women’s emotional displays—seems genuinely touched by her loyalty. After Strickland dies four or five years later, Ata carries out his final request: to burn down their house, on the walls of which Strickland has painted his final masterpiece. She then moves to the Marquesas Islands with her surviving son to live with other relatives.
Ata Quotes in The Moon and Sixpence
The The Moon and Sixpence quotes below are all either spoken by Ata or refer to Ata. 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:
).
Chapters 1–16
Quotes
The moral I draw is that the writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work and in release from the burden of his thoughts; and, indifferent to aught else, care nothing for praise or censure, failure or success.
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Chapters 17–42
Quotes
“She had a wonderful body, and I wanted to paint a nude. When I’d finished my picture I took no more interest in her.”
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Chapters 43–58
Quotes
“She leaves me alone […]. She cooks my food and looks after her babies. She does what I tell her. She gives me what I want from a woman.”
“Thou art my man and I am thy woman. Whither thou goest I will go too.”
“But he was blind.”
“Yes; he had been blind for nearly a year.”
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“I think Strickland knew it was a masterpiece. He had achieved what he wanted. His life was complete. He had made a world and saw that it was good. Then, in pride and contempt, he destroyed it.”
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Ata Quotes in The Moon and Sixpence
The The Moon and Sixpence quotes below are all either spoken by Ata or refer to Ata. 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:
).
Chapters 1–16
Quotes
The moral I draw is that the writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work and in release from the burden of his thoughts; and, indifferent to aught else, care nothing for praise or censure, failure or success.
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Chapters 17–42
Quotes
“She had a wonderful body, and I wanted to paint a nude. When I’d finished my picture I took no more interest in her.”
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Chapters 43–58
Quotes
“She leaves me alone […]. She cooks my food and looks after her babies. She does what I tell her. She gives me what I want from a woman.”
“Thou art my man and I am thy woman. Whither thou goest I will go too.”
“But he was blind.”
“Yes; he had been blind for nearly a year.”
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“I think Strickland knew it was a masterpiece. He had achieved what he wanted. His life was complete. He had made a world and saw that it was good. Then, in pride and contempt, he destroyed it.”
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