I was a new man now, a new girl. I was freed, like those slaves were freed in the coming war.”
-- Narrator (chapter 1)

Importance: Here, Thomas describes his experience of wearing women’s clothing for the time. He equates it to the abolishment of slavery, suggesting that the rejection of his male body allows him to achieve a kind of emancipation. This sets the tone for the rest of the novel, as it triggers Thomas’s journey toward self-exploration and self-acceptance.

The knives opened the flesh like they were painting paintings of a new country, sheer plains of dark land, with the red rivers bursting their banks everywhere, till we were sloshing in God knows what and the dry earth was suddenly turned to noisy mud.
-- Narrator (chapter 2)

Importance: In this passage, Thomas describes the way that the Shawnee scouts carve meat after their hunt. His depiction is fraught with metaphorical imagery, and the allusion to...