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Queen Victoria
The narrator's mother is a skilled and competent housewife who is exceptionally proud of her competence. She's briefly shaken when her mother-in-law, Tha'mma, retires and is in the house full-time, but Mother soon regains her hold over the household. Despite this, she and Tha'mma are often at odds: Tha'mma gave Mother most of her jewelry when her husband died, and it irks Tha'mma to no end that Mother's no-nonsense sensibilities don't leave much room for frivolity like jewelry. She regularly refuses to deal with Tha'mma when Tha'mma is in one of her moods, sending her son instead.
Mother Quotes in The Shadow Lines
The The Shadow Lines quotes below are all either spoken by Mother or refer to Mother. 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:
).
1. Going Away
Quotes
I could guess at a little of what it had cost her then to refuse her rich sister's help and of the wealth of pride it had earned her, and I knew intuitively that all that had kept her from agreeing at once was her fear of accepting anything from anyone that she could not return in exact measure.
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She had given me away, she had made public, then and for ever, the inequality of our needs; she had given Ila the knowledge of her power and she had left me defenceless, naked in the face of that unthinkable, adult truth: that need is not transitive, that one may need without oneself being needed.
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2. Coming Home
Quotes
But if there aren't any trenches or anything, how are people to know? I mean, where's the difference then? And if there's no difference, both sides will be the same […] What was it all for then—Partition and all the killing and everything—if there isn't something in between?
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Mother Quotes in The Shadow Lines
The The Shadow Lines quotes below are all either spoken by Mother or refer to Mother. 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:
).
1. Going Away
Quotes
I could guess at a little of what it had cost her then to refuse her rich sister's help and of the wealth of pride it had earned her, and I knew intuitively that all that had kept her from agreeing at once was her fear of accepting anything from anyone that she could not return in exact measure.
Related Characters:
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Explanation and Analysis:
She had given me away, she had made public, then and for ever, the inequality of our needs; she had given Ila the knowledge of her power and she had left me defenceless, naked in the face of that unthinkable, adult truth: that need is not transitive, that one may need without oneself being needed.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
2. Coming Home
Quotes
But if there aren't any trenches or anything, how are people to know? I mean, where's the difference then? And if there's no difference, both sides will be the same […] What was it all for then—Partition and all the killing and everything—if there isn't something in between?
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