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Sister Eve
One-eyed Jack is a farmer who lives in Fremont County. After discovering Odie, Albert, Mose, and Emmy sleeping in his shed, he holds them captive and forces them to work on his neglected land. Before the events of the mains story take place, one-eyed Jack’s wife, Aggie, and his daughter, Sophie, abandoned him to live with his former friend, Rudy. Alone, Jack is overwhelmed by anger and depression, issues his alcoholism exacerbates. Although Jack has moments of kindness, his volatile nature eventually leads Odie to shoot him in self-defense. Jack survives the shooting, however, and he himself by getting sober and reconnecting with his family. Not only does Jack forgive Odie, but he also thanks the boy for playing a part in his journey of personal growth.
One-Eyed Jack Quotes in This Tender Land
The This Tender Land quotes below are all either spoken by One-Eyed Jack or refer to One-Eyed Jack. 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 19
Quotes
“Everything’s hard work, Buck. You don’t wrap your thinking around that, life’ll kill you for sure. Me, I love this land, the work. Never was a churchgoer. God all penned up under a roof? I don’t think so. Ask me, God’s right here. In the dirt, the rain, the sky, the trees, the apples, the stars in the cottonwoods. In you and me, too. It’s all connected and it’s all God. Sure this is hard work, but it’s good work because it’s a part of what connects us to this land, Buck. This beautiful, tender land.”
“This land spawned a tornado that killed Emmy’s mother. You call that tender?”
“Tragic, that’s what I call it. But don’t blame the land. […] The land is what it is. Life is what it is. God is what God is. You and me, we’re what we are. None of it’s perfect. Or hell, maybe it all is and we’re just not wise enough to see it.”
Related Characters:
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Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20
Quotes
I’d killed Vincent DiMarco, which had done something to me that could not be undone. But if you asked me, even to this day, I would tell you that I’ve never been sorry he was dead. Jack was different. I knew it wasn’t his fault, the rage inside him. I’d seen a different Jack, a Jack I liked and, who knows, given time and other circumstances, a Jack I might have been happy to call my friend. Shooting him was like shooting an animal with rabies. It had to be done. But when I pulled that trigger, I lost something of myself, something even more significant than when I’d killed DiMarco, something I think of now as a sliver of my soul.
Chapter 21
Quotes
There is a deeper hurt than anything sustained by the body, and it’s the wounding of the soul. It’s the feeling that you’ve been abandoned by everyone, even God. It’s the most alone you’ll ever be. A wounded body heals itself, but there is a scar. Watching Emmy weep in Mose’s strong arms, I thought the same must be true for a soul. There was a thick scar on my heart now, but the wound to Emmy’s heart was still so recent that it hadn’t begun to heal. I watched as Mose signed on her palm again and again, Not alone. Not alone.
Chapter 62
Quotes
“What I’m going to say may sound impossible. But I’ve seen impossible things before, so here goes. Those fits she suffers? I think they may be her attempt at wrestling with what she sees when she looks into the future. I think she might be trying to alter what she sees there.”
That knocked me over. “She changes the future?”
“Maybe just tweaks it a little. Like a good storyteller rewriting the last sentence.”
Get the entire This Tender Land LitChart as a printable PDF.
One-Eyed Jack Quotes in This Tender Land
The This Tender Land quotes below are all either spoken by One-Eyed Jack or refer to One-Eyed Jack. 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 19
Quotes
“Everything’s hard work, Buck. You don’t wrap your thinking around that, life’ll kill you for sure. Me, I love this land, the work. Never was a churchgoer. God all penned up under a roof? I don’t think so. Ask me, God’s right here. In the dirt, the rain, the sky, the trees, the apples, the stars in the cottonwoods. In you and me, too. It’s all connected and it’s all God. Sure this is hard work, but it’s good work because it’s a part of what connects us to this land, Buck. This beautiful, tender land.”
“This land spawned a tornado that killed Emmy’s mother. You call that tender?”
“Tragic, that’s what I call it. But don’t blame the land. […] The land is what it is. Life is what it is. God is what God is. You and me, we’re what we are. None of it’s perfect. Or hell, maybe it all is and we’re just not wise enough to see it.”
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20
Quotes
I’d killed Vincent DiMarco, which had done something to me that could not be undone. But if you asked me, even to this day, I would tell you that I’ve never been sorry he was dead. Jack was different. I knew it wasn’t his fault, the rage inside him. I’d seen a different Jack, a Jack I liked and, who knows, given time and other circumstances, a Jack I might have been happy to call my friend. Shooting him was like shooting an animal with rabies. It had to be done. But when I pulled that trigger, I lost something of myself, something even more significant than when I’d killed DiMarco, something I think of now as a sliver of my soul.
Chapter 21
Quotes
There is a deeper hurt than anything sustained by the body, and it’s the wounding of the soul. It’s the feeling that you’ve been abandoned by everyone, even God. It’s the most alone you’ll ever be. A wounded body heals itself, but there is a scar. Watching Emmy weep in Mose’s strong arms, I thought the same must be true for a soul. There was a thick scar on my heart now, but the wound to Emmy’s heart was still so recent that it hadn’t begun to heal. I watched as Mose signed on her palm again and again, Not alone. Not alone.
Chapter 62
Quotes
“What I’m going to say may sound impossible. But I’ve seen impossible things before, so here goes. Those fits she suffers? I think they may be her attempt at wrestling with what she sees when she looks into the future. I think she might be trying to alter what she sees there.”
That knocked me over. “She changes the future?”
“Maybe just tweaks it a little. Like a good storyteller rewriting the last sentence.”
