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Trevor’s Father / Robert
Trevor’s incisive, devout grandmother, who runs the family’s two-room household (with roughly a dozen residents) in Soweto. Patricia has a tumultuous relationship with Frances in her youth, but they later grow to trust one another. Frances loves that Trevor speaks English as his first language, because that means he can pray in English at the neighborhood’s nightly prayer circles—and everyone knows “English prayers get answered first.”
Trevor’s Grandmother / Frances Noah Quotes in Born a Crime
The Born a Crime quotes below are all either spoken by Trevor’s Grandmother / Frances Noah or refer to Trevor’s Grandmother / Frances Noah. 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:
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Chapter 3 Quotes
There is something magical about Soweto. Yes, it was a prison designed by our oppressors, but it also gave us a sense of self-determination and control. Soweto was ours. It had an aspirational quality that you don't find elsewhere. In America the dream is to make it out of the ghetto. In Soweto, because there was no leaving the ghetto, the dream was to transform the ghetto.
For the million people who lived in Soweto, there were no stores, no bars, no restaurants. There were no paved roads, minimal electricity, inadequate sewerage. But when you put one million people together in one place, they find a way to make a life for themselves. A black-market economy rose up, with every type of business being run out of someone's house: auto mechanics, day cafe, guys selling refurbished tires.
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Soweto, where Trevor’s mother grows up and his grandmother still lives to this day, is a township outside Johannesburg, effectively an area outside the city center that was designated for black South Africans during apartheid and then built with dismal facilities by the government. This is the tragedy of Soweto: people were given nothing, not allowed to leave, and treated as a constant possible threat (the township has limited routes in and out, Trevor notes, so that the government can bomb it and trap people inside to put down protests). Yet this origin story also creates the “something magical” in Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Qui
Chapter 5 Quotes
So many black families spend all of their time trying to fix the problems of the past. That is the curse of being black and poor, and it is a curse that follows you from generation to generation. My mother calls it “the black tax.” Because the generations who came before you have been pillaged, rather than being free to use your skills and education to move forward, you lose everything just trying to bring everyone behind you back up to zero. Working for the family in Soweto, my mom had no more freedom than she'd had in Transkei, so she ran away. She ran all the way down to the train station and jumped on a train and disappeared into the city, determined to sleep in public restrooms and rely on the kindness of prostitutes until she could make her own way in the world.
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As he recounts his mother’s path from Soweto to living in horrible poverty in the Xhosa homeland and back again, Trevor Noah points out how Patricia’s family actually held her back rather than propelling her forward because, from the moment she earned her own income, she was expected to help support all of them. As a result, she decided to run away from them and live on her own terms (although this does not mean she broke ties with them). This is central to her identity and system of values; she insists that Trevor be free to do whatever he Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Quia soluta itaque. Deleniti nisi earum. Ad tenetur laboriosam. Eum accusamus harum. Accusantium iusto voluptas. Totam quae corporis. Impedit non ut. Incidunt rerum est. Aperiam doloremque eum. Animi soluta perspiciatis. Ut minima autem. Modi omnis iure. Sint qui qui. Qui similique praesentium. Ex consequatur magnam. Aliquid iste enim. Sequi aut maxime. Adipisci voluptate et. Voluptas suscipit alias. In et eveniet. Eaque et repellendus. Dolores aut voluptati
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Trevor’s Grandmother / Frances Noah Character Timeline in Born a Crime
The timeline below shows where the character Trevor’s Grandmother / Frances Noah appears in Born a Crime. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3
...of women: Trevor’s aunt Sibongile, who dominated her wannabe abusive husband Dinky, and his grandmother Frances Noah, who is old but sharp and commanding, “still to this day very active and...
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...prayer followed by songs and often five minutes of “amen.” On Tuesdays, prayer is at Frances Noah’s house; Trevor loves singing and praying, and Frances loves his prayers because he speaks...
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...build it up from a shanty to a multi-room house over the course of generations. Frances Noah’s house has two rooms—everyone sleeps on the floor in one of them, and the...
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Later that day, when Frances comes home, Koko exclaims that “there’s something in the house,” which she could hear and...
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Chapter 4
The chapter begins. Trevor accidentally breaks his cousin’s eardrum while playing surgeon; his grandmother beats everyone but him, claiming, “I don’t know how to hit a white child.” She...
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Chapter 5
...soon after having her; Patricia is “the problem child” and fights constantly with her mother (Frances) but loves accompanying her father (Temperance) “on his manic misadventures.” She tries to move in...
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Chapter 18
...and nearly burns down, but Abel is “too drunk to care.” Patricia calls her mother Frances, insisting that “this man, he’s going to kill us one day,” but Abel hangs up...
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...takes Andrew and Trevor to Soweto, and a few weeks later, Abel comes to apologize. Frances encourages Patricia to give him another chance, and she agrees. For years, everything is fine...
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