How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"I just love her to death. Well, everyone does. Do you know what Mrs. Stringer says?" said Jolene, naming her home economics teacher. "One day she told the class, 'Nancy Clutter is always in a hurry, but she always has time. And that's one definition of a lady.'" (1.78)
Is a lady supposed to drop everything to do what people ask of her? Nancy Clutter seems more than that. Interesting how Jolene's mother describes her as ladylike, when Nancy can keep up with anyone.
Quote #2
Yet to this day she regretted not having completed the course and received her diploma—"just to prove"—as she had told a friend, "that I once succeeded at something." Instead, she had met and married Herb […]. (1.87)
This was a pretty common path for women in the 1940s. You have to wonder though, if Bonnie's depression would have been less severe if she had the nursing career she was studying for.
Quote #3
Some years earlier, Mrs. Clutter had traveled to Wichita for two weeks of treatment and stayed two months. On the advice of a doctor, who had thought the experience would aid her to regain "a sense of adequacy and usefulness," she had taken a job as a file clerk at the Y.W.C.A. Her husband, entirely sympathetic, had encouraged the adventure, but she liked it too well, so much that it seemed to her unchristian, and the sense of guilt she in consequence developed ultimately outweighed the experiment's therapeutic value. (1.92)
Oh wait. We don't have to wonder. There's a lot to unpack in this small episode. Even though Herb was supportive (and we knew he would be, he's that secure), Bonnie had internalized the expectations of her society and her religion and felt that holding a job—and liking a job—was somehow inappropriate.