A COMPLICATED KINDNESS
Significant Quotations
"I went into my room. I threw a T-shirt over my lamp, lit some of Tash's incense and put on a Bob Marley album. I played "Redemption Song" about twenty times." (190)
"It's a funny premise for a movie, that's all. Mennonite girl in New York City. Amish family goes to Soho. It's terribly depressing to realize that your innermost desires are being tested in Hollywood for laughs per minute." (179)
"It's killing me! Mom, it really is! And then something happened that took me completely by surprise. I heard my mom say, I know honey, I know it is." (193)
"I'll try to quit when I'm forty. Who wants to smoke after that. Really, who wants to live after that? At forty, I'll have worked for approximately twenty-three years chopping heads off chickens. It'll be time." (113)
"It's like we play these conventional roles of idiot dad and rebellious teenager even though we're way beyond that—we're more like two mental patients just getting through another day." (215)
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1. This quotation reveals that Naomi feels pain when she thinks about how her biggest dream is a joke to other people. It is likely that the Amish people in the real life shows called "Breaking Amish" underwent similar emotions when they first entered New York City.
2. When Naomi feels depressed, she finds comfort in Bob Marley's "Redemption Song". The term "redemption" foreshadows that by the end of the novel, Naomi will redeem herself. At the end of the novel, she admits that "[she has] a chance at redemption" (324). Ever since her sister and mother departed from the Mennonite community, she treats herself unfairly by doing drugs and telling herself she is not worth enough to live out her dream. By the end of the novel, Naomi finally comes to a realization that "East Village has given [her] the faith to believe in the possibility of a happy family reunion someday" (324). *
3. When Natasha says that she cannot stand the Mennonite community, Naomi finds it shocking that Trudie shares mutual feelings. This quotation displays what both Natasha and her mother were feeling before they departed from the Mennonite community. After overhearing this conversation, Naomi may have felt even more certain that she wanted to leave the punitive culture.
4. Naomi is so depressed that she does not even see a point in living past the age of forty. At the age of sixteen, she is struggling to quit smoking. Her rebellious and unhealthy addiction is only going to cause more emotional and physical damage to her body. Naomi has no motivation to live anymore. By the time she is forty, all she imagines her life consisting of is smoking and cutting chickens heads. This quotation reveals that she has no intention of getting married and having her own family in the future.
5. This quotation reveals that everyday that Naomi and her father live are meaningless, and only another day to dread. Naomi feels as if her and her father are suffering from a disorder, just as a mental person would. Their disorder would be that they are deprived of happiness, as they have to obey rules set without the support of half of their family.
* Click here to listen to Bob Marley's "Redemption Song"
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