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Desmond is one of Elwood’s peers at Nickel Academy. When Elwood first arrives, Blakely instructs Desmond to show him around. Because of this, Desmond becomes Elwood’s guide, telling him everything about Nickel and becoming one of his closest friends, along with Turner and Jaimie. When Desmond finds a bottle of “horse medicine” in a shed, he stashes it away and fantasizes about secretly feeding it to one of the authorities at Nickel during the annual staff Christmas banquet. At first, this is nothing more than a thought experiment, as Elwood, Turner, and Jaimie fantasize about whom they’d like to poison, thinking that the medicine would simply make a person violently ill. However, Jaimie fixates on the idea of putting the medicine into Earl’s drink, hating Spencer’s sidekick for some unknown reason. Before long, Desmond and the other boys drop the matter, but Jaimie follows through, giving Earl the medicine—which seems more like actual poison—and refusing to admit to his friends that he did so.
Desmond Quotes in The Nickel Boys
The The Nickel Boys quotes below are all either spoken by Desmond or refer to Desmond. 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 Five
Quotes
Academic performance had no bearing on one’s progress to graduation, Desmond explained. Teachers didn’t take attendance or hand out grades. The clever kids worked on their merits. Enough merits and you could get an early release for good behavior. Work, comportment, demonstrations of compliance or docility, however—these things counted toward your ranking and were never far from Desmond’s attention. He had to get home.
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Desmond Quotes in The Nickel Boys
The The Nickel Boys quotes below are all either spoken by Desmond or refer to Desmond. 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 Five
Quotes
Academic performance had no bearing on one’s progress to graduation, Desmond explained. Teachers didn’t take attendance or hand out grades. The clever kids worked on their merits. Enough merits and you could get an early release for good behavior. Work, comportment, demonstrations of compliance or docility, however—these things counted toward your ranking and were never far from Desmond’s attention. He had to get home.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Unlock explanations and citation info for this and every other The Nickel Boys quote.
Plus so much more...
Get LitCharts A+
