The Nickel Boys

by

Colson Whitehead

Griff is a student at Nickel Academy. With Lonnie and Black Mike, he bullies the other boys, intimidating and beating them up on a regular basis. Griff is an extraordinarily large young man, which is why he’s chosen to represent the black students in Nickel’s annual boxing championship. However, his lack of intelligence gets him in trouble when he fails to obey Spencer’s order to intentionally lose the fight. Forgetting that he and Big Chet—his opponent in the championship—have already boxed three rounds, Griff doesn’t “take a dive” in the match’s final round, which is what Spencer ordered him to do. Because he won the majority of the rounds, then, he wins the championship, thereby defying Spencer’s instructions. As a result, Spencer takes Griff to the abandoned horse stables in the middle of the night and beats him to death, later claiming that he ran away. Griff’s body is eventually found during the archaeological excavation that takes place decades later.

Griff Quotes in The Nickel Boys

The The Nickel Boys quotes below are all either spoken by Griff or refer to Griff. 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:
Trauma and Repression Theme Icon
).
Chapter Ten Quotes

The blinders Elwood wore, walking around. The law was one thing—you can march and wave signs around and change a law if you convinced enough white people. In Tampa, Turner saw the college kids with their nice shirts and ties sit in at the Woolworths. He had to work, but they were out protesting. And it happened—they opened the counter. Turner didn’t have the money to eat there either way. You can change the law but you can’t change people and how they treat each other. Nickel was racist as hell—half the people who worked here probably dressed up like the Klan on weekends—but the way Turner saw it, wickedness went deeper than skin color. It was Spencer. It was Spencer and it was Griff and it was all the parents who let their children wind up here. It was people.

Which is why Turner brought Elwood out to the two trees. To show him something that wasn’t in books.

Related Characters: Elwood Curtis, Jack Turner , Maynard Spencer, Griff
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:

Elwood frowned in disdain at the whole performance, which made Turner smile. The fight was as rigged and rotten as the dishwashing races he’d told Turner about, another gear in the machine that kept black folks down. Turner enjoyed his friend’s new bend toward cynicism, even as he found himself swayed by the magic of the big fight. Seeing Griff, their enemy and champion, put a hurting on that white boy made a fellow feel all right. In spite of himself. Now that the third and final round was upon them, he wanted to hold on to that feeling. It was real—in their blood and minds—even if it was a lie.

Related Characters: Elwood Curtis, Jack Turner , Maynard Spencer, Griff, Big Chet
Page Number: 112
Explanation and Analysis:

He was all of them in one black body that night in the ring, and all of them when the white men took him out back to those two iron rings. They came for Griff that night and he never returned. The story spread that he was too proud to take a dive. That he refused to kneel. And if it made the boys feel better to believe that Griff escaped, broke away and ran off into the free world, no one told them otherwise, although some noted that it was odd the school never sounded the alarm or sent out the dogs. When the state of Florida dug him up fifty years later, the forensic examiner noted the fractures in the wrists and speculated that he’d been restrained before he died, in addition to the other violence attested by the broken bones.

Related Characters: Maynard Spencer, Griff, Big Chet
Page Number: 114
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Nickel Boys PDF

Griff Quotes in The Nickel Boys

The The Nickel Boys quotes below are all either spoken by Griff or refer to Griff. 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:
Trauma and Repression Theme Icon
).
Chapter Ten Quotes

The blinders Elwood wore, walking around. The law was one thing—you can march and wave signs around and change a law if you convinced enough white people. In Tampa, Turner saw the college kids with their nice shirts and ties sit in at the Woolworths. He had to work, but they were out protesting. And it happened—they opened the counter. Turner didn’t have the money to eat there either way. You can change the law but you can’t change people and how they treat each other. Nickel was racist as hell—half the people who worked here probably dressed up like the Klan on weekends—but the way Turner saw it, wickedness went deeper than skin color. It was Spencer. It was Spencer and it was Griff and it was all the parents who let their children wind up here. It was people.

Which is why Turner brought Elwood out to the two trees. To show him something that wasn’t in books.

Related Characters: Elwood Curtis, Jack Turner , Maynard Spencer, Griff
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:

Elwood frowned in disdain at the whole performance, which made Turner smile. The fight was as rigged and rotten as the dishwashing races he’d told Turner about, another gear in the machine that kept black folks down. Turner enjoyed his friend’s new bend toward cynicism, even as he found himself swayed by the magic of the big fight. Seeing Griff, their enemy and champion, put a hurting on that white boy made a fellow feel all right. In spite of himself. Now that the third and final round was upon them, he wanted to hold on to that feeling. It was real—in their blood and minds—even if it was a lie.

Related Characters: Elwood Curtis, Jack Turner , Maynard Spencer, Griff, Big Chet
Page Number: 112
Explanation and Analysis:

He was all of them in one black body that night in the ring, and all of them when the white men took him out back to those two iron rings. They came for Griff that night and he never returned. The story spread that he was too proud to take a dive. That he refused to kneel. And if it made the boys feel better to believe that Griff escaped, broke away and ran off into the free world, no one told them otherwise, although some noted that it was odd the school never sounded the alarm or sent out the dogs. When the state of Florida dug him up fifty years later, the forensic examiner noted the fractures in the wrists and speculated that he’d been restrained before he died, in addition to the other violence attested by the broken bones.

Related Characters: Maynard Spencer, Griff, Big Chet
Page Number: 114
Explanation and Analysis: