Previous
Sonmi~451
Zachry Bailey is the protagonist of the post-apocalyptic “Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After,” the only story in the book that doesn’t take place inside another story. As a boy, he witnesses a violent tribe called the Kona murder his Pa and kidnap his brother Adam Bailey to enslave him. Later, as a teenager, Zachry’s life changes forever when he meets Meronym, a Prescient woman who comes from a civilization with much more advanced technology than Zachry’s Valleysmen people, suggesting that she is one of the last survivors of pre-apocalyptic civilization. Meronym doesn’t want to disturb life in Zachry’s village, but Zachry is more curious than the other Valleysmen, and his interactions with Meronym cause him to question some of his deepest beliefs, such as his faith in the benevolent goddess Sonmi and the evil spirit Old Georgie. A second Kona attack separates Zachry from his family and forces him to run away with Meronym to find one of the other surviving Prescients. With his constant references to supernatural forces like Sonmi and Old Georgie, Zachry’s story blurs the line between “real” events and fantasy, and many years later, when Zachry is dead, his children wonder how much of his life story was actually true. Zachry’s story represents the consequences of violence as well as the difficulty of separating objective truth from emotion and superstition.
Zachry Bailey Quotes in Cloud Atlas
The Cloud Atlas quotes below are all either spoken by Zachry Bailey or refer to Zachry Bailey. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 6
Quotes
Old Georgie’s path an’ mine crossed more times’n I’m comfy mem’ryin’, an’ after I’m died, no sayin’ what that fangy devil won’t try an’ do to me … so gimme some mutton an’ I’ll tell you ’bout our first meetin’. A fat joocesome slice, nay, none o’ your burnt wafery off’rin’s …
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
So hungrysome was my curio, I held it again, an’ the egg vibed warm till a ghost-girl flickered’n’appeared there! Yay, a ghost-girl, right ’bove the egg, as truesome as I’m sittin’ here, her head’n’neck was jus’ floatin’ there, like ’flection in moon-water, an’ she was talkin’! Now I got scared an’ took my hands off the sil’vry egg, but the ghost-girl stayed, yay.
List’n, savages an’ Civ’lizeds ain’t divvied by tribes or b’liefs or mountain ranges, nay, ev’ry human is both, yay. Old Uns’d got the Smart o’ gods but the savagery o’ jackals an’ that’s what tripped the Fall. Some savages what I knowed got a beautsome Civ’lized heart beatin’ in their ribs. Maybe some Kona. Not ’nuff to say-so their hole tribe, but who knows one day? One day.
Zachry my old pa was a wyrd buggah, I won’t naysay it now he’s died. Oh, most o’ Pa’s yarnin’s was jus’ musey duck fartin’ an’ in his loonsome old age he even b’liefed Meronym the Prescient was his presh b’loved Sonmi, yay, he ’sisted it, he said he knowed it all by birthmarks an’ comets’n’all.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7
Quotes
We see a game beyond the endgame. I refer to my Declarations, Archivist. Media has flooded Nea So Copros with my Catechisms. Every schoolchild in corpocracy knows my twelve “blasphemies” now.
Get the entire Cloud Atlas LitChart as a printable PDF.
Zachry Bailey Quotes in Cloud Atlas
The Cloud Atlas quotes below are all either spoken by Zachry Bailey or refer to Zachry Bailey. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 6
Quotes
Old Georgie’s path an’ mine crossed more times’n I’m comfy mem’ryin’, an’ after I’m died, no sayin’ what that fangy devil won’t try an’ do to me … so gimme some mutton an’ I’ll tell you ’bout our first meetin’. A fat joocesome slice, nay, none o’ your burnt wafery off’rin’s …
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
So hungrysome was my curio, I held it again, an’ the egg vibed warm till a ghost-girl flickered’n’appeared there! Yay, a ghost-girl, right ’bove the egg, as truesome as I’m sittin’ here, her head’n’neck was jus’ floatin’ there, like ’flection in moon-water, an’ she was talkin’! Now I got scared an’ took my hands off the sil’vry egg, but the ghost-girl stayed, yay.
List’n, savages an’ Civ’lizeds ain’t divvied by tribes or b’liefs or mountain ranges, nay, ev’ry human is both, yay. Old Uns’d got the Smart o’ gods but the savagery o’ jackals an’ that’s what tripped the Fall. Some savages what I knowed got a beautsome Civ’lized heart beatin’ in their ribs. Maybe some Kona. Not ’nuff to say-so their hole tribe, but who knows one day? One day.
Zachry my old pa was a wyrd buggah, I won’t naysay it now he’s died. Oh, most o’ Pa’s yarnin’s was jus’ musey duck fartin’ an’ in his loonsome old age he even b’liefed Meronym the Prescient was his presh b’loved Sonmi, yay, he ’sisted it, he said he knowed it all by birthmarks an’ comets’n’all.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7
Quotes
We see a game beyond the endgame. I refer to my Declarations, Archivist. Media has flooded Nea So Copros with my Catechisms. Every schoolchild in corpocracy knows my twelve “blasphemies” now.
