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Thomas Wazhashk
Patrice is one of the novel’s protagonists. Her mother, Zhaanat, is Thomas’s cousin, and Patrice thinks of herself as Thomas’s niece. In part because of the precarity of her home life—economically, emotionally, and physically because of her alcoholic, abusive father, Pogo Paranteau —Patrice has become self-reliant and highly values her independence. Her desire to maintain that independence often puts her at odds with prevailing gender norms of the time. For instance, she is her family’s primary breadwinner with her work at the Turtle Mountain Jewel Bearing Plant. Before the novel’s present, Patrice was sexually assaulted by Bucky and his friends, including her coworker Doris’s brother. The boxing coach and math teacher, Lloyd Barnes, is infatuated with Patrice, though she rebuffs him. After her sister, Vera, goes missing, Patrice feels compelled to go search for her, showing her deep loyalty to her family above all else. She travels to Minneapolis to try and track her down and meets Jack Malloy, who runs a nightclub where she briefly becomes a performer, wearing the waterjack suit nightly. When the circumstances at the nightclub—and Jack’s attempts to manipulate her—become untenable, she escapes in the middle of the night. She then brings Vera’s baby back home from Minneapolis. While Vera is missing, Patrice and Wood Mountain—along with Patrice’s mother, Zhaanat—become surrogate parents to Vera’s baby. At the same time, Patrice and Wood Mountain begin a romantic relationship, though it ultimately fizzles out. Through that relationship, the novel explores Patrice’s ambivalence toward love, romance, and the social expectations society placed on women in the 1950s. Patrice’s biggest dream, which she reveals to Millie Cloud, is to one day go to college.
Patrice “Pixie” Paranteau Quotes in The Night Watchman
The The Night Watchman quotes below are all either spoken by Patrice “Pixie” Paranteau or refer to Patrice “Pixie” Paranteau. 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:
).
Lard on Bread
Quotes
Word went out that dough was in Patrice’s bucket. That she’d forgotten to cook it, bake it, fry it […] Saint Anne pushed a buttered bun across the table to Patrice. Someone handed an oatmeal cookie down the line. Doris gave her half a bacon sandwich.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Mr. Vold forbade speech. Still, they did speak. They hardly remembered what they said, later, but they talked to one another all day.
The Skin Tent
Quotes
There were times when Patrice felt like she was stretched across a frame, like a skin tent. She tried to forget that she could be so easily blown away. Or how easily her father could wreck them all. This feeling of being the only barrier between her family and disaster wasn’t new, but they had come so far since she started work.
Valentine’s Days
Quotes
Valentine said, “You can have my days.”
“What do you mean?”
“My sick days. Mr. Vold told me that I could give my days to you. Under the circumstances.”
The Waterjack
Quotes
Gawiin ingikendizo siin. I am a stranger to myself […] This was again the sort of feeling and thinking that could only be described in Chippewa, where the strangeness was also humorous and the danger surrounding this entire situation was the sort that you might laugh at, even though you could also get hurt, and there were secrets involved, and desperation, for indeed she had nowhere, after her unthinkable short immediate future rolling in the water tank, nowhere to go but the dressing room down at the other end of the second-floor hall of Log Jam 26.
The Promotion
Quotes
“A pimp is someone who owns the lady. Takes the money she got paid for having sex, see?”
“No. I don’t see,” said Patrice flatly. But she did see. Jack would have tampered with her slightly, just enough so that when somebody else came along she’d have that shame, then more shame, until she got lost in shame and wasn’t herself.
New Year’s Soup
Quotes
And Patrice thought another thing her mother said was definitely true—you never really knew a man until you told him you didn’t love him. That’s when his true ugliness, submerged to charm you, might surface.
Get the entire The Night Watchman LitChart as a printable PDF.
Patrice “Pixie” Paranteau Quotes in The Night Watchman
The The Night Watchman quotes below are all either spoken by Patrice “Pixie” Paranteau or refer to Patrice “Pixie” Paranteau. 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:
).
Lard on Bread
Quotes
Word went out that dough was in Patrice’s bucket. That she’d forgotten to cook it, bake it, fry it […] Saint Anne pushed a buttered bun across the table to Patrice. Someone handed an oatmeal cookie down the line. Doris gave her half a bacon sandwich.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Mr. Vold forbade speech. Still, they did speak. They hardly remembered what they said, later, but they talked to one another all day.
The Skin Tent
Quotes
There were times when Patrice felt like she was stretched across a frame, like a skin tent. She tried to forget that she could be so easily blown away. Or how easily her father could wreck them all. This feeling of being the only barrier between her family and disaster wasn’t new, but they had come so far since she started work.
Valentine’s Days
Quotes
Valentine said, “You can have my days.”
“What do you mean?”
“My sick days. Mr. Vold told me that I could give my days to you. Under the circumstances.”
The Waterjack
Quotes
Gawiin ingikendizo siin. I am a stranger to myself […] This was again the sort of feeling and thinking that could only be described in Chippewa, where the strangeness was also humorous and the danger surrounding this entire situation was the sort that you might laugh at, even though you could also get hurt, and there were secrets involved, and desperation, for indeed she had nowhere, after her unthinkable short immediate future rolling in the water tank, nowhere to go but the dressing room down at the other end of the second-floor hall of Log Jam 26.
The Promotion
Quotes
“A pimp is someone who owns the lady. Takes the money she got paid for having sex, see?”
“No. I don’t see,” said Patrice flatly. But she did see. Jack would have tampered with her slightly, just enough so that when somebody else came along she’d have that shame, then more shame, until she got lost in shame and wasn’t herself.
New Year’s Soup
Quotes
And Patrice thought another thing her mother said was definitely true—you never really knew a man until you told him you didn’t love him. That’s when his true ugliness, submerged to charm you, might surface.
