You’ll remove that ring when you’re ready.
-- Mike (Debarking paragraph 2)

Importance: Mike counsels Ira on his divorce six months ago. Ira has been reluctant to move on, to get back into the dating world, and his problem is symbolized by the physical inability he encounters when attempting to remove his wedding ring. This inability to remove the ring is indeed more symbolic than anything, for it demonstrates his emotional refusal to let go of the past.

Every family is a family of alligators.
-- Zora (Debarking paragraph 69)

Importance: Zora, though she was speaking to Ira about a book she intends to write, nevertheless makes a prescient statement about families – and one that is true of most families in Moore’s collection of short stories. Families are not full of loving people in these stories, but alligators – cruel and unkind people that will eat others alive if given the chance. This is certainly true in later stories, such...