How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
I tried to imagine how I looked. I knew my shirt and pants were in tatters. My hair felt ropy. There was no way to comb it. I wondered how my eyes looked and asked Timothy about that.
"Dey look widout cease," he said. "Dey stare, Phill-eep."
"Do they bother you?"
Timothy laughed. "Not me. Eevery day I think what rare good luck I 'ave dat you be 'ere wid my own self on dis outrageous, hombug islan'." (10.29-32)
Phillip's exterior has definitely changed, but what else has? Even though Phillip's eyes stare absently, they don't bother Timothy. Why not?
Quote #8
From walking over it, feeling it, and listening to it, I think I knew what our cay looked like. As Timothy said, it was shaped like a melon, or a turtle, sloped up from the sea to our ridge where the palms flapped all day and night in the light trade wind. (11.3)
Phillip has to stop judging by appearances because, well, he's blind. How does he know what the beach looks like? What new ways of seeing does he discover?
Quote #9
I had now been with him every moment of the day and night for two months, but I had not seen him. I remember that ugly welted face. But now, in my memory, it did not seem ugly at all. It seemed only kind and strong.
I asked, "Timothy, are you still black?"
His laughter filled the hut. (13.52-54)
Phillip's blindness allows him to cast aside his preconceived notions about race and get to know Timothy in a different way. Why does Phillip ask Timothy if he is still "black"? How would you have responded if you were Timothy?