Blog#7 "Significant Quotes"

Quote 1: “I could not go on living if all my years of longing for liberty and homeland were to lead me back to the neck yokes and ankle chains of my childhood abduction.” Page 490.

This quote is very significant as it sums up Aminata’s purpose in life. Throughout the whole novel we see Aminata struggle with many different obstacles in her life. The first obstacle being when she is kidnapped from Bayo at a young age. We also see her go through many obstacles through her time in slavery, her time with Lindo, her time escaping from Lindo, and her fight from freedom. This quote shows that Aminata has been fighting for her freedom, and longing to go back to Bayo. In the novel two of the many themes are hope and home. Aminata held onto hope that one day she would be free, and Aminata always discussed being free and being back at home in Bayo. 

Quote 2: “If I spent my time hating, my emotions would have been spent long ago, and I would be nothing more than an empty cowrie shell.” Page 452.

This quote is very significant, as you would think throughout the story that Aminata should have hated and not trusted anyone, after being mistreated so many times. But Aminata doesn’t, and this quote explains it perfectly. I also think that if Aminata decided not to like anyone or trust anyone, she would have never gotten out of her situation and might have never became “free.” Also she compares herself to a cowrie shell, and a cowrie shell, is a shell that some animals live in, and once the animals grow to a certain size they leave their shell and find a bigger shell to live in, leaving the shell empty. This compassion is really good, as it shows she knows that if she hated people and didn’t trust them that it wouldn’t have gotten her anywhere, and even though she was already not happy it would have made her even more empty.

Quote 3: “ “Look,” said Armstrong, “was the experience so terrible for you? Here you are, a picture of health, comfortable clothes, food in your belly, with a roof over your head and abolitionists fending for you in Freetown. Most of the world doesn’t live that well.” Page 470.

This quote is significant as Armstrong is basically saying that whatever happened to Aminata before doesn’t matter now because she is living better than most of the other people in her situation. Which is a completely awful thing to say as Aminata went through a lot of terrible events, and it wasn’t as if she woke up one morning and was free. She worked her butt off to get where she is today. Aminata probably wouldn’t have ever gotten out of the slave trade if it weren’t for her talents, and her determination to get back to Bayo.

Quote #4: “My children were like phantom limbs, lost but still attached to me, gone but still painful.” Page 393.

This quote is significant as Aminata had two kids during the novel, and they were both taken away from her. So Aminata explains her feelings towards her kids being taken away from her as, “phantom limbs.” Phantom limbs are people who lose their limbs but they get feelings that their limbs are still there, and sometimes they can even feel pain from them. Phantom limbs are the perfect explanation to explain the lose of her kids, as she still feels like their with her, and she can still feel the pain even though her kids are gone.

Quote#5: “Many times that winter, I slid onto my knees and called out the names of my parents, my son and my husband, crying for them as if they had just gone missing with my most recent exhalation.” Page 367.

This quote is significant as Aminata was lonely, as she had lost anyone who was very special to her. Throughout the whole novel we see how Aminata wants to go home, to be reunited with her husband, to be back with her kids, and to go back to Bayo with her husband and her two kids on her side to show something for her suffering, and now Aminata has nothing. She is all alone and has no one.