A Complicated Kindness

by

Miriam Toews

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on A Complicated Kindness makes teaching easy.

Tash Nickel Character Analysis

Nomi’s wild and fiercely independent older sister. Like their mother, Trudie, Tash is absent during the novel’s present action, having left town with her boyfriend, Ian. As a child, Nomi is appalled by her sister’s predilection for drugs and alcohol and her disobedience of Mennonite norms. But as Nomi becomes an adolescent herself she inherits her sister’s clothes, taste in subversive music, and critical attitude towards her community. Nomi misses her sister and often imagines what advice Tash would give in tough situations. It’s partly out of the desire to emulate her sister’s trajectory that Nomi becomes so attached to the idea of leaving town with her own boyfriend, Travis. Yet this idea proves ill-advised and Nomi ultimately breaks up with Travis before setting out on her own. By the end of the novel, she realizes that in order to become her own person, she must break away not only from her community but from her imitations of her sister.

Tash Nickel Quotes in A Complicated Kindness

The A Complicated Kindness quotes below are all either spoken by Tash Nickel or refer to Tash Nickel. 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:
Religion and Dogma Theme Icon
).
Chapter Two Quotes

The only thing I needed to know was that we were all going to live forever, together, happily, in heaven and with God, and without pain and sadness and sin. And in my town that is the deal. It’s taken for granted. We’ve been hand-picked. We’re on a fast track, singled out, and saved.

Related Characters: Nomi Nickel (speaker), Ray Nickel, Trudie Nickel, Tash Nickel
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Eighteen Quotes

I didn’t know why she was crying, until I heard my mom say honey, what is it? What’s wrong? And Tash said: I think I’ll go crazy. I can’t stand it. It’s all a fucking lie. It’s killing me! Mom, it really is! And then something happened that took me completely by surprise, I heard my mom say, I know honey, I know it is.

Related Characters: Nomi Nickel (speaker), Trudie Nickel, Tash Nickel
Page Number: 146
Explanation and Analysis:

My mom put some blankets and pillows into a garbage bag and carried it out to Ian’s truck. She put bread and fruit and the fresh ham she’d bought that day into a box and Ian carried that out.

I remembered my mom telling us about the Mennonites in Russia fleeing in the middle of the night, scrambling madly to find a place, any place, where they’d be free. All they needed, she said, was for people to tolerate their unique apartness.

Related Characters: Nomi Nickel (speaker), Trudie Nickel, Tash Nickel, Ian
Page Number: 148
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Twenty-Eight Quotes

Truthfully, this story ends with me still sitting on the floor of my room wondering who I’ll become if I leave this town and remembering when I was little kid and loved to fall asleep in my bed […] listening to the voices of my sister and my mother talking and laughing in the kitchen and the sounds of my dad poking around in the yard, making things beautiful right outside my bedroom window.

Related Characters: Nomi Nickel (speaker), Ray Nickel, Trudie Nickel, Tash Nickel
Page Number: 246
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire A Complicated Kindness LitChart as a printable PDF.
A Complicated Kindness PDF

Tash Nickel Quotes in A Complicated Kindness

The A Complicated Kindness quotes below are all either spoken by Tash Nickel or refer to Tash Nickel. 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:
Religion and Dogma Theme Icon
).
Chapter Two Quotes

The only thing I needed to know was that we were all going to live forever, together, happily, in heaven and with God, and without pain and sadness and sin. And in my town that is the deal. It’s taken for granted. We’ve been hand-picked. We’re on a fast track, singled out, and saved.

Related Characters: Nomi Nickel (speaker), Ray Nickel, Trudie Nickel, Tash Nickel
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Eighteen Quotes

I didn’t know why she was crying, until I heard my mom say honey, what is it? What’s wrong? And Tash said: I think I’ll go crazy. I can’t stand it. It’s all a fucking lie. It’s killing me! Mom, it really is! And then something happened that took me completely by surprise, I heard my mom say, I know honey, I know it is.

Related Characters: Nomi Nickel (speaker), Trudie Nickel, Tash Nickel
Page Number: 146
Explanation and Analysis:

My mom put some blankets and pillows into a garbage bag and carried it out to Ian’s truck. She put bread and fruit and the fresh ham she’d bought that day into a box and Ian carried that out.

I remembered my mom telling us about the Mennonites in Russia fleeing in the middle of the night, scrambling madly to find a place, any place, where they’d be free. All they needed, she said, was for people to tolerate their unique apartness.

Related Characters: Nomi Nickel (speaker), Trudie Nickel, Tash Nickel, Ian
Page Number: 148
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Twenty-Eight Quotes

Truthfully, this story ends with me still sitting on the floor of my room wondering who I’ll become if I leave this town and remembering when I was little kid and loved to fall asleep in my bed […] listening to the voices of my sister and my mother talking and laughing in the kitchen and the sounds of my dad poking around in the yard, making things beautiful right outside my bedroom window.

Related Characters: Nomi Nickel (speaker), Ray Nickel, Trudie Nickel, Tash Nickel
Page Number: 246
Explanation and Analysis: