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The Husband
Lucy is the narrator’s six-year-old daughter. She was born in Egypt roughly a year into the narrator and her husband’s marriage. The narrator refers to her as “her treasure, her trap,” because Lucy is the reason she has stuck around in this loveless marriage. She is what gives the narrator a sense of usefulness and purpose in a culture she has failed to assimilate into.
Lucy Quotes in Sandpiper
The Sandpiper quotes below are all either spoken by Lucy or refer to Lucy. 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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Sandpiper Quotes
She fits herself into my body and I put my arm over her until she shakes it off. In her sleep she makes used of me; my breast is sometimes her pillow, my hip her footstool. I lie content, glad to be used. I hold her foot in my hand and dread the time—so soon to come—when it will no longer be seemly to kiss the dimpled ankle.
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Um Sabir washes all the fruit and vegetables in red permanganate. This is for my benefit, since Lucy crunches cucumbers and carrots straight out of the greengrocer’s baskets. But then she was born here. And now she belongs. If I had taken her away then, when she was eight months old, she would have belonged with me.
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Lucy Character Timeline in Sandpiper
The timeline below shows where the character Lucy appears in Sandpiper. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Sandpiper
The narrator looks at her bed and sees that it is made. Her daughter, Lucy, stumbles into this bed every night. She nestles her body into the narrator’s and uses...
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...wonders what story she could write now. Sitting at her writing table, she waits for Lucy. Everyone—Lucy’s father, uncle, aunts, cousins, and Um Sabir—are out by the pool. Everyone thinks the...
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...as the rest of the fruit and vegetables, in red permanganate, for the narrator’s sake. Lucy, on the other hand, is allowed to munch on vegetables straight from the grocery store....
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...kitchen and walks down the hallway; she passes Um Sabir’s bedroom, her husband’s bedroom, and Lucy’s bedroom. She looks through the blinds once again and notices that the white glare is...
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...old films. She yearns to be playful and lighthearted again. But now she has only Lucy to play with, and Lucy is currently occupied with her cousins.
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Lucy will come back inside soon, accompanied by the narrator’s husband and Um Sabir. The narrator...
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Seeing Lucy look at herself that way reminded the narrator of when Um Sabir covered all the...
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Returning to her memory of the previous day, the narrator recalls how Lucy requested a blue clasp for her hair. After securing her braid, the narrator then applied...
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