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Ella
In “Gaps in the Hickory,” Jeanie is Jackson’s wife, Izzy’s daughter-in-law, and Carter and Lucy’s mother. She loves her son Carter and knows about Carter’s transgender identity. She doesn’t openly reject Carter’s identity but fears for his safety, given Jackson’s increasingly bigoted views and unhinged behavior. She knows it’s only a matter of time before Jackson discovers the truth about Carter, and she worries that he’ll hurt Carter when he does. In the end, Jeanie makes the difficult decision to take Carter to live with Delores in New Orleans, where Izzy told Jeanie Carter would be safe.
Jeanie Quotes in Foreign Soil
The Foreign Soil quotes below are all either spoken by Jeanie or refer to Jeanie. 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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Gaps in the Hickory Quotes
Delores put a hand on Ella’s shoulder, pull her back into the living room. “Quiet, chile. You gon scare him away! That pickney don’t know us from Adam.” But even as Delores say it, she know it ain’t true. Minute that chile an her lay eyes on each other, they gon know they kin. It’s gon feel like they finally home.
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Explanation and Analysis:
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Jeanie Character Timeline in Foreign Soil
The timeline below shows where the character Jeanie appears in Foreign Soil. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Gaps in the Hickory
Jeanie carries the clothes basket to the children’s room and sits down. It’s summer in Mississippi,...
(full context)
Jeanie returns to the clothes basket and separates her son’s clothes from her daughter’s clothes, and...
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Jeanie looks out the window; she sees Lucy running around in the yard outside. Jackson is...
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...took her body away had a hard time straightening her to go on the stretcher. Jeanie ordered him not to watch, but he did anyway. Jackson saw him watching and slapped...
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...this.” Then they lit a cross on fire. Jackson found Carter and drove him home. Jeanie was furious; Jackson left to return to the forest.
(full context)
Jeanie watches Jackson prepare for his evening and thinks about how his “Klan business” has gotten...
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It was Izzy who told Jeanie about Carter. She told Jeanie she’d caught Carter dressed up in a lacy blouse, Izzy’s...
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...flowery baby soaps, ribbons. Jackson always hated how interested Carter was in Lucy’s girly things. Jeanie assured him that it was just a phase. But Carter has always known that he...
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Jeanie opens a can of spaghetti, dumps its contents into a bowl, and places the bowl...
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...his grandpa is that Jackson hates him more than anything in the whole world. As Jeanie angrily cleans up a mess Lucy has made, Carter scrapes his uneaten spaghetti into the...
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Jeanie opens the door to Lucy’s room quietly. She sees Carter standing in front of the...
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Carter and Lucy hold hands in the back seat as Jeanie backs out of the garage. Carter doesn’t know what’s going to happen, but he knows...
(full context)
