Where the Crawdads Sing

by

Delia Owens

Jodie is Kya’s brother, and is the closest to her in age of all their siblings. When Ma leaves, he tries to make her feel better by insisting that she’ll return, pointing out that mothers never abandon their young. However, Kya reminds Jodie that they recently saw a female fox leave her cubs, but he says this was only because the fox was hurt and knew she wouldn’t survive if she stayed. Because Ma isn’t trying to save her own life, Jodie assures Kya, she will certainly come back. Unfortunately, though, Jodie is wrong to think that Ma isn’t leaving home as a means of survival, since her decision to escape Pa’s wrath is nothing but a means of self-preservation. In fact, Jodie himself secretly recognizes this, but he doesn’t say anything about his misgivings because he wants to soothe Kya—a sign that he’s an empathetic person who wants to do what he can to make his little sister feel better. But despite this determination, he decides after his siblings follow their mother’s footsteps that he, too, must leave home, thereby abandoning Kya. In the coming years, Kya thinks about Jodie quite often, since he taught her how to sneak around the marsh and how to hide from strangers, so she recalls his advice on a regular basis. To her surprise, he actually returns as an adult after having completed two military tours in Vietnam, and he apologizes for ever leaving Kya. He also tells her that he recently discovered that their mother died two years ago. For the rest of Jodie’s life, he lives near the marsh, visiting Kya often and supporting her whenever he can.

Jodie Quotes in Where the Crawdads Sing

The Where the Crawdads Sing quotes below are all either spoken by Jodie or refer to Jodie. 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:
Survival, Necessity, and Violence Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

“A ma don’t leave her kids. It ain’t in ’em.”

“You told me that fox left her babies.”

“Yeah, but that vixen got ’er leg all tore up. She’d’ve starved to death if she’d tried to feed herself ’n’ her kits. She was better off to leave ’em, heal herself up, then whelp more when she could raise ’em good. Ma ain’t starvin’, she’ll be back.” Jodie wasn’t nearly as sure as he sounded, but said it for Kya.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark) (speaker), Jodie (speaker), Ma (Kya’s Mother), Pa (Kya’s Father)
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

A gnawing hunger—such a mundane thing—surprised her. She walked to the kitchen and stood at the door. All her life the room had been warmed from baking bread, boiling butter beans, or bubbling fish stew. Now, it was stale, quiet, and dark. “Who’s gonna cook?” she asked out loud. Could have asked, Who’s gonna dance?

She lit a candle and poked at hot ashes in the woodstove, added kin­dling. Pumped the bellows till a flame caught, then more wood.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Ma (Kya’s Mother), Jodie, Pa (Kya’s Father)
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

Ma used to soak wounds in salt water and pack them with mud mixed with all kinds of potions. There was no salt in the kitchen, so Kya limped into the woods toward a brackish slipstream so salty at low tide, its edges glistened with brilliant white crystals. She sat on the ground, soaking her foot in the marsh’s brine, all the while moving her mouth: open, close, open, close, mocking yawns, chewing motions, anything to keep it from jamming up. After nearly an hour, the tide receded enough for her to dig a hole in the black mud with her fingers, and she eased her foot gently into the silky earth. The air was cool here, and eagle cries gave her bearing.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Ma (Kya’s Mother), Jodie, Pa (Kya’s Father)
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

As Kya had crept closer, she saw it was a hen turkey on the ground, and the birds of her own flock were pecking and toe-scratching her neck and head. Somehow she’d managed to get her wings so tangled with briars, her feathers stuck out at strange angles and she could no longer fly. Jodie had said that if a bird becomes different from the others—disfigured or wounded—it is more likely to attract a predator, so the rest of the flock will kill it, which is better than drawing in an eagle, who might take one of them in the bargain.

[…]

Kya ran into the clearing, throwing her arms around. “Hey, what ya doing? Git outta here. Stop it!” The flurry of wings kicked up more dust as the turkeys scattered into brush, two of them flying heavy into an oak. But Kya was too late.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark) (speaker), Tate, Jodie
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 33 Quotes

“It happens in humans, too. Some behaviors that seem harsh to us now ensured the survival of early man in what­ ever swamp he was in at the time. Without them, we wouldn’t be here. We still store those instincts in our genes, and they express themselves when certain circumstances prevail. Some parts of us will always be what we were, what we had to be to survive—way back yonder.

“Maybe some primitive urge—some ancient genes, not appropriate anymore—drove Ma to leave us because of the stress, the horror and real danger of living with Pa. That doesn’t make it right; she should have chosen to stay. But knowing that these tendencies are in our bio­ logical blueprints might help one forgive even a failed mother. That may explain her leaving, but I still don’t see why she didn’t come back.”

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark) (speaker), Ma (Kya’s Mother), Jodie, Pa (Kya’s Father)
Page Number: 238
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Where the Crawdads Sing LitChart as a printable PDF.
Where the Crawdads Sing PDF

Jodie Quotes in Where the Crawdads Sing

The Where the Crawdads Sing quotes below are all either spoken by Jodie or refer to Jodie. 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:
Survival, Necessity, and Violence Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

“A ma don’t leave her kids. It ain’t in ’em.”

“You told me that fox left her babies.”

“Yeah, but that vixen got ’er leg all tore up. She’d’ve starved to death if she’d tried to feed herself ’n’ her kits. She was better off to leave ’em, heal herself up, then whelp more when she could raise ’em good. Ma ain’t starvin’, she’ll be back.” Jodie wasn’t nearly as sure as he sounded, but said it for Kya.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark) (speaker), Jodie (speaker), Ma (Kya’s Mother), Pa (Kya’s Father)
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

A gnawing hunger—such a mundane thing—surprised her. She walked to the kitchen and stood at the door. All her life the room had been warmed from baking bread, boiling butter beans, or bubbling fish stew. Now, it was stale, quiet, and dark. “Who’s gonna cook?” she asked out loud. Could have asked, Who’s gonna dance?

She lit a candle and poked at hot ashes in the woodstove, added kin­dling. Pumped the bellows till a flame caught, then more wood.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Ma (Kya’s Mother), Jodie, Pa (Kya’s Father)
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

Ma used to soak wounds in salt water and pack them with mud mixed with all kinds of potions. There was no salt in the kitchen, so Kya limped into the woods toward a brackish slipstream so salty at low tide, its edges glistened with brilliant white crystals. She sat on the ground, soaking her foot in the marsh’s brine, all the while moving her mouth: open, close, open, close, mocking yawns, chewing motions, anything to keep it from jamming up. After nearly an hour, the tide receded enough for her to dig a hole in the black mud with her fingers, and she eased her foot gently into the silky earth. The air was cool here, and eagle cries gave her bearing.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark), Ma (Kya’s Mother), Jodie, Pa (Kya’s Father)
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

As Kya had crept closer, she saw it was a hen turkey on the ground, and the birds of her own flock were pecking and toe-scratching her neck and head. Somehow she’d managed to get her wings so tangled with briars, her feathers stuck out at strange angles and she could no longer fly. Jodie had said that if a bird becomes different from the others—disfigured or wounded—it is more likely to attract a predator, so the rest of the flock will kill it, which is better than drawing in an eagle, who might take one of them in the bargain.

[…]

Kya ran into the clearing, throwing her arms around. “Hey, what ya doing? Git outta here. Stop it!” The flurry of wings kicked up more dust as the turkeys scattered into brush, two of them flying heavy into an oak. But Kya was too late.

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark) (speaker), Tate, Jodie
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 33 Quotes

“It happens in humans, too. Some behaviors that seem harsh to us now ensured the survival of early man in what­ ever swamp he was in at the time. Without them, we wouldn’t be here. We still store those instincts in our genes, and they express themselves when certain circumstances prevail. Some parts of us will always be what we were, what we had to be to survive—way back yonder.

“Maybe some primitive urge—some ancient genes, not appropriate anymore—drove Ma to leave us because of the stress, the horror and real danger of living with Pa. That doesn’t make it right; she should have chosen to stay. But knowing that these tendencies are in our bio­ logical blueprints might help one forgive even a failed mother. That may explain her leaving, but I still don’t see why she didn’t come back.”

Related Characters: Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark) (speaker), Ma (Kya’s Mother), Jodie, Pa (Kya’s Father)
Page Number: 238
Explanation and Analysis: