Small Great Things

Small Great Things

by

Jodi Picoult

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Small Great Things makes teaching easy.

Raine Tesco Character Analysis

A white supremacist in his early twenties who takes an interest in the teenaged Turk. He introduces Turk to the central tenets of white supremacy, takes him to several festivals, and eventually, initiates Turk into the North American Death Squad by taking him to beat up Turk's father outside of a gay bar. The two are close friends during that time, though they lose contact in the following years when both of them get married. Following Davis's death, Turk reconnects with Raine to ask him for help in "memorializing" Davis through a hate crime. However, Turk is shocked when Raine admits that he's no longer active in the movement for the sake of his children. After his toddler daughter used a racist slur in public, fellow shoppers made Raine feel terrible enough to make him decide that it wasn't fair to his daughter to raise her with that hate, knowing that she'd be ostracized for it.

Raine Tesco Quotes in Small Great Things

The Small Great Things quotes below are all either spoken by Raine Tesco or refer to Raine Tesco. 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:
Racism: Hate, Fear, and Grief Theme Icon
).
Chapter 3, Turk Quotes

They were all wearing black shirts with a logo over the chest: NADS. "What's that stand for?" I asked.

"North American Death Squad," Raine said. "It's kind of our thing."

I wanted one of those T-shirts so bad. "So, like, how do you get to be a part of it?" I asked, as casually as I could manage.

One of the other guys laughed. "You get asked," he said.

I decided at that moment I was going to do whatever it took to get an invitation.

Related Characters: Turk Bauer (speaker), Raine Tesco (speaker)
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15, Turk Quotes

"They promised us we'd be part of something bigger than us. That we'd be proud of our heritage and our race. And maybe that's, like, ten percent of the whole deal. The rest is just hating everyone else for existing. Once I started thinking that, I couldn't stop. Maybe that's why I felt like shit all the time, like I wanted to fucking bust someone's face in constantly, just to remind myself that I could. That's okay for me. But that's not how I want my kid to grow up."

Related Characters: Raine Tesco (speaker), Turk Bauer
Page Number: 248
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Small Great Things LitChart as a printable PDF.
Small Great Things PDF

Raine Tesco Quotes in Small Great Things

The Small Great Things quotes below are all either spoken by Raine Tesco or refer to Raine Tesco. 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:
Racism: Hate, Fear, and Grief Theme Icon
).
Chapter 3, Turk Quotes

They were all wearing black shirts with a logo over the chest: NADS. "What's that stand for?" I asked.

"North American Death Squad," Raine said. "It's kind of our thing."

I wanted one of those T-shirts so bad. "So, like, how do you get to be a part of it?" I asked, as casually as I could manage.

One of the other guys laughed. "You get asked," he said.

I decided at that moment I was going to do whatever it took to get an invitation.

Related Characters: Turk Bauer (speaker), Raine Tesco (speaker)
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15, Turk Quotes

"They promised us we'd be part of something bigger than us. That we'd be proud of our heritage and our race. And maybe that's, like, ten percent of the whole deal. The rest is just hating everyone else for existing. Once I started thinking that, I couldn't stop. Maybe that's why I felt like shit all the time, like I wanted to fucking bust someone's face in constantly, just to remind myself that I could. That's okay for me. But that's not how I want my kid to grow up."

Related Characters: Raine Tesco (speaker), Turk Bauer
Page Number: 248
Explanation and Analysis: