Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

by

August Wilson

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Joe Turner’s Come and Gone makes teaching easy.

Martha Loomis (Martha Pentecost) Character Analysis

Herald Loomis’s wife, and Zonia’s mother. After Herald was captured by Joe Turner, Martha had trouble sustaining Zonia and herself financially, so she left Zonia with her own mother and traveled north, following the family’s church. After establishing herself in the north, she returned to fetch Zonia, but Herald had already come and taken the young girl. Martha then lived for a brief period in Seth and Bertha’s boarding house before moving just outside town to be near the church. When she finally sees Herald, she tries to convince him to return to Christianity, telling him that Jesus bled for him and that he can’t “just be alive”; “Life don’t mean nothing unless it got a meaning,” she says, but she’s unable to convince her husband.

Martha Loomis (Martha Pentecost) Quotes in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

The Joe Turner’s Come and Gone quotes below are all either spoken by Martha Loomis (Martha Pentecost) or refer to Martha Loomis (Martha Pentecost). 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:
Migration and Transience Theme Icon
).
Act One: Scene One Quotes

(LOOMIS slashes himself across the chest. He rubs the blood over his face and comes to a realization.)
I’m standing! I’m standing. My legs stood up! I’m standing now!
(Having found his song, the song of self-sufficiency, fully resurrected, cleansed and given breath, free from any encumbrance other than the workings of his own heart and the bonds of the flesh, having accepted the responsibility for his own presence in the world, he is free to soar above the environs that weighed and pushed his spirit into terrifying contractions.)

Related Characters: Herald Loomis (speaker), Martha Loomis (Martha Pentecost)
Page Number: 93
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Joe Turner’s Come and Gone LitChart as a printable PDF.
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone PDF

Martha Loomis (Martha Pentecost) Quotes in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

The Joe Turner’s Come and Gone quotes below are all either spoken by Martha Loomis (Martha Pentecost) or refer to Martha Loomis (Martha Pentecost). 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:
Migration and Transience Theme Icon
).
Act One: Scene One Quotes

(LOOMIS slashes himself across the chest. He rubs the blood over his face and comes to a realization.)
I’m standing! I’m standing. My legs stood up! I’m standing now!
(Having found his song, the song of self-sufficiency, fully resurrected, cleansed and given breath, free from any encumbrance other than the workings of his own heart and the bonds of the flesh, having accepted the responsibility for his own presence in the world, he is free to soar above the environs that weighed and pushed his spirit into terrifying contractions.)

Related Characters: Herald Loomis (speaker), Martha Loomis (Martha Pentecost)
Page Number: 93
Explanation and Analysis: