We the Animals

by

Justin Torres

Manny Character Analysis

Manny is the narrator’s oldest brother. Like Paps, Manny is wild and tough, though he also has a sensitive side, as evidenced by the close relationship he has with the narrator, to whom he shares his private thoughts about God, life, and someday leaving behind their difficult circumstances. All the three brothers are very close, and they turn to each other for support when their parents prove themselves incapable of giving them the care they need. And yet, Manny’s desire to be seen as tough and macho renders him quite similar to Paps, which is why he and Joel (who shares his way of moving through the world) don’t know what to make of the narrator when it becomes clear that he’s different from them. Indeed, Manny senses that the narrator will have a different life than him because of his academic success. More importantly, though, he also picks up on the fact that the narrator doesn’t align with the same vision of masculinity to which he, Joel, and Paps adhere. This makes him uncomfortable, but the brothers are unable to address this dynamic when he brings it up by accusing the narrator of being “fucked up”—this, it seems, is the most he can bring himself to say about the matter, since he doesn’t know how to broach such emotionally sensitive topics. At the same time, though, he remains proud and protective of the narrator, eventually working alongside Joel to restrain Paps from hurting him after the narrator threatens Ma for invading his privacy and outing him as a gay man.

Manny Quotes in We the Animals

The We the Animals quotes below are all either spoken by Manny or refer to Manny. 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:
Identity and Belonging Theme Icon
).
1. We Wanted More Quotes

And when our Paps came home, we got spankings. Our little round butt cheeks were tore up: red, raw, leather-whipped. We knew there was something on the other side of pain, on the other side of the sting. Prickly heat radiated upward from our thighs and backsides, fire consumed our brains, but we knew that there was something more, someplace our Paps was taking us with all this. We knew, because he was meticulous, because he was precise, because he took his time. He was awakening us; he was leading us somewhere beyond burning and ripping, and you couldn’t get there in a hurry.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 2
Explanation and Analysis:

But there were times, quiet moments, when our mother was sleeping, when she hadn’t slept in two days, and any noise, any stair creak, any shut door, any stifled laugh, any voice at all, might wake her, those still, crystal mornings, when we wanted to protect her, this confused goose of a woman, this stumbler, this gusher, with her backaches and headaches and her tired, tired ways, […] those quiet mornings when we’d fix ourselves oatmeal and sprawl onto our stomachs with crayons and paper, with glass marbles that we were careful not to rattle, when our mother was sleeping […].

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 2
Explanation and Analysis:
2. Never-Never Time Quotes

We had learned not to correct her or try to pull her out of the confusion; it only made things worse. Once, before we’d known better, Joel refused to go to the neighbors and ask for a stick of butter. It was nearly midnight and she was baking a cake for Manny.

“Ma, you’re crazy,” Joel said. “Everyone’s sleeping, and it’s not even his birthday.”

She studied the clock for a good while, shook her head quickly back and forth, and then focused on Joel; she bored deep in his eyes as if she was looking past his eyeballs, into the lower part of his brain. Her mascara was all smudged and her hair was stiff and thick, curling black around her face and matted down in the back. She looked like a raccoon caught digging in the trash: surprised, dangerous.

“I hate my life,” she said.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:
3. Heritage Quotes

“Mutts,” he said. “You ain’t white and you ain’t Puerto Rican. Watch how a purebred dances, watch how we dance in the ghetto.” Every word was shouted over the music, so it was hard to tell if he was mad or just making fun.

He danced, and we tried to see what separated him from us. He pursed his lips and kept one hand on his stomach. His elbow was bent, his back was straight, but somehow there was looseness and freedom and confidence in every move.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 10
Explanation and Analysis:
4. Seven Quotes

“Loving big boys is different from loving little boys—you’ve got to meet tough with tough. It makes me tired sometimes, that’s all, and you, I don’t want you to leave me. I’m not ready.”

Then Ma leaned in and whispered more in my ear, told me more, about why she needed me six. She whispered it all to me, her need so big, no softness anywhere, only Paps and boys turning into Paps.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:

I grabbed hold of both of her cheeks and pulled her toward me for a kiss.

The pain traveled sharp and fast to her eyes, pain opened up her pupils into big black disks. She ripped her face from mine and shoved me away from her, to the floor. She cussed me and Jesus, and the tears dropped, and I was seven.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
8. Other Locusts Quotes

I yelled for them to stop, that’s all I did, yelled that one word over and over, stop, stop, stop. I thought of Ma, whispering that same stop, stop, stop to our father. Manny sucked down the snot from his nose into his throat and spat a lugie in Joel’s face, and the mucus slid off, like egg yolk.

“Animals,” said Old Man, “animals.”

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Manny, Joel, Old Man
Related Symbols: Animals
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:
10. You Better Come Quotes

[…] when I looked at her face she looked like she was in pain, but she didn’t look frightened, like it was a kind of pain she wanted.

[…] The faucet poked into the base of her spine, and it must have hurt her, all of it must have hurt her, because Paps was much bigger and heftier, and he was rough with her, just like he was rough with us. We saw that it must hurt her, too, to love him.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 48
Explanation and Analysis:

Then we were all three kicking and slapping at once, and they didn’t say a word, they didn’t even move; the only noise was the noise of skin and impact and breath, and then our protests, why don’t you come find us, why don’t you do what you’re supposed to do, come and find us, why don’t ya, because you’re bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, why don’t you do right, why can’t you do right, we hate you, come and find us, we hate you, everyone hates you, you better come and find us, next time, next time you better come.

We hit and we kept on hitting; we were allowed to be what we were, frightened and vengeful—little animals, clawing at what we needed.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Related Symbols: Animals
Page Number: 50
Explanation and Analysis:
11. Night Watch Quotes

“He crying?” Joel whispered.

“What, with his fist?”

It didn’t seem much like crying, seemed like something else, meaner than crying; steadier, too, but not one of us had ever actually seen him cry, so we couldn’t know for sure—and Paps, he didn’t say a word about it, just the thump, thump, thump, for miles. When we thought he would stop, he didn’t; when we thought he would speak or scream or cuss, he was silent. His breathing calmed some, but the water and snot kept coming, and the wheeze, and the gasp.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 58
Explanation and Analysis:
13. Ducks Quotes

Ma flipped the ignition, and the engine jumped to life. We drove back the way we came, and eventually we pulled into the driveway, home again. We had been terrified she might actually take us away from him this time but also thrilled with the wild possibility of change. Now, at the sight of our house, when it was safe to feel let down, we did. I could feel the bitterness in my brothers’ silence; I wondered if Ma felt it too.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:
18. The Night I Am Made Quotes

See me there with them, in the snow—both inside and outside their understanding. See how I made them uneasy. They smelled my difference—my sharp, sad, pansy scent. They believed I would know a world larger than their own. They hated me for my good grades, for my white ways. All at once they were disgusted, and jealous, and deeply protective, and deeply proud.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:

Then Joel was behind me, locking my arms in a full nelson. I tried to shrug him off, but it was no use. They were both drunk; Manny held that damn branch right in front of my face. I imagined the welt of it slamming across the side of my head. And I wanted it.

“Either you’re fucked up, or you’re getting fucked up. Which one will it be?”

Look at us three, look at how they held me there—they didn’t want to let me go.

“Go ahead, Manny, hit me with that stick. See if it makes you feel better.” My voice started strong but ended soft, a whisper, a plea. “Just fucking beat me with it.”

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Manny, Joel
Page Number: 109
Explanation and Analysis:

If the lot was full enough, I could emerge from the hedge and walk between two parked buses to the men’s room without anyone’s seeing. There was no one to explain any of this to me; I figured out the routine on my own, in small, paranoid steps. For weeks I’d been sneaking to this bus station, lurking, indecisive. I hid in the stalls, peeked through the cracks. At the sink, I washed and washed my hands, unable to return the frank stares in the mirror. I didn’t know how to show these men I was ready.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:

Paps lunged, and my brothers, for the first time in their lives, restrained him. But that restraint shifted before my eyes into an embrace; somehow, at the same time that they were keeping him back, they were supporting him, holding Paps upright, preventing him from sliding to the floor himself, and in that moment I realized that not just Ma, but each and every one of them had read the fantasies and delusions, the truth I had written in my little private book.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 116
Explanation and Analysis:
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We the Animals PDF

Manny Quotes in We the Animals

The We the Animals quotes below are all either spoken by Manny or refer to Manny. 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:
Identity and Belonging Theme Icon
).
1. We Wanted More Quotes

And when our Paps came home, we got spankings. Our little round butt cheeks were tore up: red, raw, leather-whipped. We knew there was something on the other side of pain, on the other side of the sting. Prickly heat radiated upward from our thighs and backsides, fire consumed our brains, but we knew that there was something more, someplace our Paps was taking us with all this. We knew, because he was meticulous, because he was precise, because he took his time. He was awakening us; he was leading us somewhere beyond burning and ripping, and you couldn’t get there in a hurry.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 2
Explanation and Analysis:

But there were times, quiet moments, when our mother was sleeping, when she hadn’t slept in two days, and any noise, any stair creak, any shut door, any stifled laugh, any voice at all, might wake her, those still, crystal mornings, when we wanted to protect her, this confused goose of a woman, this stumbler, this gusher, with her backaches and headaches and her tired, tired ways, […] those quiet mornings when we’d fix ourselves oatmeal and sprawl onto our stomachs with crayons and paper, with glass marbles that we were careful not to rattle, when our mother was sleeping […].

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 2
Explanation and Analysis:
2. Never-Never Time Quotes

We had learned not to correct her or try to pull her out of the confusion; it only made things worse. Once, before we’d known better, Joel refused to go to the neighbors and ask for a stick of butter. It was nearly midnight and she was baking a cake for Manny.

“Ma, you’re crazy,” Joel said. “Everyone’s sleeping, and it’s not even his birthday.”

She studied the clock for a good while, shook her head quickly back and forth, and then focused on Joel; she bored deep in his eyes as if she was looking past his eyeballs, into the lower part of his brain. Her mascara was all smudged and her hair was stiff and thick, curling black around her face and matted down in the back. She looked like a raccoon caught digging in the trash: surprised, dangerous.

“I hate my life,” she said.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:
3. Heritage Quotes

“Mutts,” he said. “You ain’t white and you ain’t Puerto Rican. Watch how a purebred dances, watch how we dance in the ghetto.” Every word was shouted over the music, so it was hard to tell if he was mad or just making fun.

He danced, and we tried to see what separated him from us. He pursed his lips and kept one hand on his stomach. His elbow was bent, his back was straight, but somehow there was looseness and freedom and confidence in every move.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 10
Explanation and Analysis:
4. Seven Quotes

“Loving big boys is different from loving little boys—you’ve got to meet tough with tough. It makes me tired sometimes, that’s all, and you, I don’t want you to leave me. I’m not ready.”

Then Ma leaned in and whispered more in my ear, told me more, about why she needed me six. She whispered it all to me, her need so big, no softness anywhere, only Paps and boys turning into Paps.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:

I grabbed hold of both of her cheeks and pulled her toward me for a kiss.

The pain traveled sharp and fast to her eyes, pain opened up her pupils into big black disks. She ripped her face from mine and shoved me away from her, to the floor. She cussed me and Jesus, and the tears dropped, and I was seven.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
8. Other Locusts Quotes

I yelled for them to stop, that’s all I did, yelled that one word over and over, stop, stop, stop. I thought of Ma, whispering that same stop, stop, stop to our father. Manny sucked down the snot from his nose into his throat and spat a lugie in Joel’s face, and the mucus slid off, like egg yolk.

“Animals,” said Old Man, “animals.”

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Manny, Joel, Old Man
Related Symbols: Animals
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:
10. You Better Come Quotes

[…] when I looked at her face she looked like she was in pain, but she didn’t look frightened, like it was a kind of pain she wanted.

[…] The faucet poked into the base of her spine, and it must have hurt her, all of it must have hurt her, because Paps was much bigger and heftier, and he was rough with her, just like he was rough with us. We saw that it must hurt her, too, to love him.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 48
Explanation and Analysis:

Then we were all three kicking and slapping at once, and they didn’t say a word, they didn’t even move; the only noise was the noise of skin and impact and breath, and then our protests, why don’t you come find us, why don’t you do what you’re supposed to do, come and find us, why don’t ya, because you’re bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, why don’t you do right, why can’t you do right, we hate you, come and find us, we hate you, everyone hates you, you better come and find us, next time, next time you better come.

We hit and we kept on hitting; we were allowed to be what we were, frightened and vengeful—little animals, clawing at what we needed.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Related Symbols: Animals
Page Number: 50
Explanation and Analysis:
11. Night Watch Quotes

“He crying?” Joel whispered.

“What, with his fist?”

It didn’t seem much like crying, seemed like something else, meaner than crying; steadier, too, but not one of us had ever actually seen him cry, so we couldn’t know for sure—and Paps, he didn’t say a word about it, just the thump, thump, thump, for miles. When we thought he would stop, he didn’t; when we thought he would speak or scream or cuss, he was silent. His breathing calmed some, but the water and snot kept coming, and the wheeze, and the gasp.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 58
Explanation and Analysis:
13. Ducks Quotes

Ma flipped the ignition, and the engine jumped to life. We drove back the way we came, and eventually we pulled into the driveway, home again. We had been terrified she might actually take us away from him this time but also thrilled with the wild possibility of change. Now, at the sight of our house, when it was safe to feel let down, we did. I could feel the bitterness in my brothers’ silence; I wondered if Ma felt it too.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:
18. The Night I Am Made Quotes

See me there with them, in the snow—both inside and outside their understanding. See how I made them uneasy. They smelled my difference—my sharp, sad, pansy scent. They believed I would know a world larger than their own. They hated me for my good grades, for my white ways. All at once they were disgusted, and jealous, and deeply protective, and deeply proud.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:

Then Joel was behind me, locking my arms in a full nelson. I tried to shrug him off, but it was no use. They were both drunk; Manny held that damn branch right in front of my face. I imagined the welt of it slamming across the side of my head. And I wanted it.

“Either you’re fucked up, or you’re getting fucked up. Which one will it be?”

Look at us three, look at how they held me there—they didn’t want to let me go.

“Go ahead, Manny, hit me with that stick. See if it makes you feel better.” My voice started strong but ended soft, a whisper, a plea. “Just fucking beat me with it.”

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Manny, Joel
Page Number: 109
Explanation and Analysis:

If the lot was full enough, I could emerge from the hedge and walk between two parked buses to the men’s room without anyone’s seeing. There was no one to explain any of this to me; I figured out the routine on my own, in small, paranoid steps. For weeks I’d been sneaking to this bus station, lurking, indecisive. I hid in the stalls, peeked through the cracks. At the sink, I washed and washed my hands, unable to return the frank stares in the mirror. I didn’t know how to show these men I was ready.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:

Paps lunged, and my brothers, for the first time in their lives, restrained him. But that restraint shifted before my eyes into an embrace; somehow, at the same time that they were keeping him back, they were supporting him, holding Paps upright, preventing him from sliding to the floor himself, and in that moment I realized that not just Ma, but each and every one of them had read the fantasies and delusions, the truth I had written in my little private book.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Ma, Paps, Manny, Joel
Page Number: 116
Explanation and Analysis: