Ella Minnow Pea

by

Mark Dunn

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Ella Minnow Pea makes teaching easy.
A sentence that uses all 26 letters of the English language. In Ella Minnow Pea, Nevin Nollop is credited with thinking up the 35-letter pangram “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” a feat that leads to an island, Nollop, being named after him. The island’s governing body, the High Island Council, believes that Nevin Nollop’s ability to make this pangram means he’s a deity, and so the citizens of Nollop are challenged with having to create a 32-letter pangram if they want to disprove the Council’s religious beliefs.

Pangram Quotes in Ella Minnow Pea

The Ella Minnow Pea quotes below are all either spoken by Pangram or refer to Pangram. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Totalitarianism, Complacency, and Resistance Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

In so doing Most Senior Council Member Willingham and his four fellow counciliteurs left themselves scant room for the possibility that the tile fell simply because, after one hundred years, whatever fixant had been holding it in place, could simply no longer perform its function. This explanation seemed quite the logical one to me, as well as to my fellow laundresses.

Related Characters: Ella Minnow Pea (speaker), High Island Council, Nevin Nollop
Related Symbols: Glue
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

7. The falling tiles can represent only one thing: a challenge—a summons to bettering our lot in the face of such deleterious complacency, and in the concomitant presence of false contentment and rank self-indulgence.

8. There is no room for alternative interpretation.

9. Interpretation of events in any other way represents heresy.

10. Heretics will be punished, as was, for example, Mr. Nollop’s saucy stenographer, who was cashiered for flippantly announcing to her employer the ease with which she could, herself, create such a sentence as his.

Related Characters: Tassie Purcy, High Island Council, Nevin Nollop, Nate Warren
Page Number: 55
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

The prospect of actually being able to control the outcome of this ghastly assault on our collective spirit, let alone our very humanity, by turning this offensive upon its cephalus, has sent some among our subterra movement to heights of unencompassable ecstasy.

Related Characters: Tassie Purcy (speaker), High Island Council, Nevin Nollop, Mittie Purcy, Nate Warren
Page Number: 99
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

Alto I no tat Nollop isn’t trewlee going awae. Tee reason: I am not going awae. I will learn to tawg in noomerals. I will learn sign langwage—anee-ting to stae in Nollop.

[…]

Insitentallee, ewe are propaplee reating mie last letter to ewe. It is now simplee too tiring to write. To sae watt I most sae in langwage one mae onterstant.

Related Characters: Ella Minnow Pea (speaker), High Island Council, Nevin Nollop, Nate Warren
Page Number: 187-188
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

All the Council members save Lyttle have tendered their resignations. Immediately thereafter Harton Mangrove attempted suicide with his necktie. It was a clumsy attempt and quickly foiled. Following our excursion to the vault, Lyttle, Tom and I proceeded to the cenotaph, climbed to the top, and with sledgehammers in hand, initiated, in earnest, an act of destructive revisionism.

Related Characters: Ella Minnow Pea (speaker), High Island Council, Nevin Nollop, Rederick Lyttle, Tom, Harton Mangrove
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Ella Minnow Pea LitChart as a printable PDF.
Ella Minnow Pea PDF

Pangram Term Timeline in Ella Minnow Pea

The timeline below shows where the term Pangram appears in Ella Minnow Pea. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
Freedom of Speech Theme Icon
...Nollop, the man for whom the island is named, and who is credited with the pangram “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Each letter of the pangram is... (full context)
Chapter 3
Blind Faith, Reason, and Logic Theme Icon
...like Nollop’s stenographer, who was dismissed because she believed that she could create a better pangram than Nollop’s. (full context)
Blind Faith, Reason, and Logic Theme Icon
...letters or less. The Council argues that she was not able to create such a pangram because “it simply cannot be done,” and that “this is what has given Nollop his... (full context)
Chapter 5
Blind Faith, Reason, and Logic Theme Icon
...your Baal.” Nate says that the only reason Nollop is worshipped is because of the pangram, and that given a few weeks, they could come up with a shorter sentence than... (full context)
Blind Faith, Reason, and Logic Theme Icon
...then got an idea: he posited that if someone could come up with a shorter pangram than Nollop’s famous one, then Nollop would no longer be worthy of worship. Lyttle agreed... (full context)
Chapter 6
Totalitarianism, Complacency, and Resistance Theme Icon
Freedom of Speech Theme Icon
...that the citizens are very excited by the challenge of coming up with a shorter pangram than Nollop’s. She says that the possibility of being able to thwart the Council’s oppression... (full context)
Totalitarianism, Complacency, and Resistance Theme Icon
...Tassie closes her letter quickly due to the fact that she must help with the pangram challenge. (full context)
Betrayal vs. Solidarity Theme Icon
...later, Nate writes a love letter to Tassie as he watches her working on the pangram challenge. Rory also writes to Mittie, saying that he appreciates how she is taking care... (full context)
Chapter 7
Totalitarianism, Complacency, and Resistance Theme Icon
...a wall at 47 letters. Many people in town have given up, believing a 32-letter pangram to be impossible. Many people are also gone from the island—either because of banishment or... (full context)
Totalitarianism, Complacency, and Resistance Theme Icon
Blind Faith, Reason, and Logic Theme Icon
...church for worshipping Nollop. Mittie assures Ella that they will be able to make a pangram of 32 letters, as she reminds Ella that Nollop could do it and he was... (full context)
Chapter 8
Freedom of Speech Theme Icon
...writes again to Nate, telling him that Professor Mannheim has come up with a 44-letter pangram: “six big devils from Japan quickly forgot how to walk.” She also tells him that... (full context)
Chapter 10
Totalitarianism, Complacency, and Resistance Theme Icon
Freedom of Speech Theme Icon
Blind Faith, Reason, and Logic Theme Icon
...tea the next day, and she exalts in the fact that they found a 43-letter pangram (“My girl wove six dozen plaid jackets before she quit”). (full context)
Chapter 11
Betrayal vs. Solidarity Theme Icon
...met thee,” she writes. Tom responds, explaining excitedly that they have made progress: a 37-letter pangram. It reads, “Zelda quickly wove eight nubby flax jumpers.” (full context)
Chapter 12
Totalitarianism, Complacency, and Resistance Theme Icon
...is asking for the impossible and that their only course is to find a 32-letter pangram. (full context)
Chapter 16
Betrayal vs. Solidarity Theme Icon
...sentence repeatedly, each time highlighting a different letter of the alphabet: it is a 32-letter pangram. (full context)
Chapter 17
Blind Faith, Reason, and Logic Theme Icon
Ella writes to Rederick Lyttle using the entire alphabet, wherein she provides the 32-letter pangram, “Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs?” She says that the credit is due... (full context)
Totalitarianism, Complacency, and Resistance Theme Icon
Freedom of Speech Theme Icon
...and Tassie, explaining what has happened. She tells them that the Council members declared the pangram a miracle. Ella explains that it was not a miracle, though, and that Nollop’s first... (full context)
Totalitarianism, Complacency, and Resistance Theme Icon
Freedom of Speech Theme Icon
...a computer scientist in America, asking if he could come up with the shortest possible pangram they can create in English, with minimal proper names. The man writes back with four... (full context)