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Florence’s closest friend and Gabriel’s first wife. As a young girl, Deborah is brutally raped by a group of white men, and because of this, her community looks at her with “reproach” as if she is a “harlot.” Deborah’s poor treatment reflects America’s sexist society. She is assaulted and raped through no fault of her own, yet she is the one who is punished not her rapists. Deborah’s rapists “robbed her of the right to be considered a woman,” and as a result, she resents men. Society assumes that women must be pure and sexually untainted, and Deborah’s tragic experience means that she is no longer a woman in their eyes. Deborah is convinced that “all men” are awful, and that “they live only to gratify on the bodies of women their brutal and humiliating needs,” which indeed proves to be the case with many of the men in Baldwin’s novel. Because of Deborah’s rape, she dedicates her life to God, “like a terrible example of humility, or like a holy fool.” Deborah is kind and tends to the sick, she is helpful to others, and she even tells Gabriel that she would have accepted Royal as her own regardless of what others said. Deborah is a good and righteous woman—the “greatest saint” and “the Lord’s peculiar treasure and most holy vessel”—yet she is viewed as wicked because of her rape. She dies halfway through the novel of a chronic and nondescript illness. Through Deborah, Baldwin simultaneously argues that Deborah’s rape is not a mark against her own morality but against her rapists, and that sex and morality are not mutually exclusive.
Deborah Quotes in Go Tell It on the Mountain
The Go Tell It on the Mountain quotes below are all either spoken by Deborah or refer to Deborah. 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:
).
Part 2: The Prayers of the Saints: Florence’s Prayer
Quotes
When men looked at Deborah they saw no further than her unlovely and violated body. In their eyes lived perpetually a lewd, uneasy wonder concerning the night she had been taken in the fields. That night had robbed her of the right to be considered a woman. No man would approach her in honor because she was a living reproach, to herself and to all black women and to all black men. […] Since she could not be considered a woman, she could only be looked on as a harlot, a source of delight more bestial and mysteries more shaking than any a proper woman could provide. Lust stirred in the eyes of men when they looked at Deborah, lust that could not be endured because it was so impersonal, limiting communion to the area of her shame. And Florence, who was beautiful but did not look with favor on any of the black men who lusted after her, […] reinforced in Deborah the terrible belief against which no evidence had ever presented itself: that all men were like this, their thoughts rose no higher, and they lived only to gratify on the bodies of women their brutal and humiliating needs.
Related Characters:
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Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: The Prayers of the Saints: Gabriel’s Prayer
Quotes
Again, there was her legend, her history, which would have been enough, even had she not been so wholly unattractive, to put her forever beyond the gates of any honorable man’s desire. This, indeed, in her silent, stolid fashion, she seemed to know: where, it might be, other women held as their very charm and secret the joy that they could give and share, she contained only the shame that she had borne—shame, unless a miracle of human love delivered her, was all she had to give. And she moved, therefore, through their small community like a woman mysteriously visited by God, like a terrible example of humility, or like a holy fool. […]There were people in the church, and even men carrying the gospel, who mocked Deborah behind her back; but their mockery was uneasy; they could never be certain but that they might be holding up to scorn the greatest saint among them, the Lord’s peculiar treasure and most holy vessel.
“I asked my God to forgive me,” he said. “But I didn’t want no harlot’s son.”
“Esther weren’t no harlot,” she said quietly.
“She weren’t my wife. I couldn’t make her my wife. I already had you”—and he said the last words with venom “Esther’s mind weren’t on the Lord—she’d of dragged me right on down to Hell with her.”
“She mighty near has,” said Deborah.
Get the entire Go Tell It on the Mountain LitChart as a printable PDF.
Deborah Quotes in Go Tell It on the Mountain
The Go Tell It on the Mountain quotes below are all either spoken by Deborah or refer to Deborah. 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:
).
Part 2: The Prayers of the Saints: Florence’s Prayer
Quotes
When men looked at Deborah they saw no further than her unlovely and violated body. In their eyes lived perpetually a lewd, uneasy wonder concerning the night she had been taken in the fields. That night had robbed her of the right to be considered a woman. No man would approach her in honor because she was a living reproach, to herself and to all black women and to all black men. […] Since she could not be considered a woman, she could only be looked on as a harlot, a source of delight more bestial and mysteries more shaking than any a proper woman could provide. Lust stirred in the eyes of men when they looked at Deborah, lust that could not be endured because it was so impersonal, limiting communion to the area of her shame. And Florence, who was beautiful but did not look with favor on any of the black men who lusted after her, […] reinforced in Deborah the terrible belief against which no evidence had ever presented itself: that all men were like this, their thoughts rose no higher, and they lived only to gratify on the bodies of women their brutal and humiliating needs.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: The Prayers of the Saints: Gabriel’s Prayer
Quotes
Again, there was her legend, her history, which would have been enough, even had she not been so wholly unattractive, to put her forever beyond the gates of any honorable man’s desire. This, indeed, in her silent, stolid fashion, she seemed to know: where, it might be, other women held as their very charm and secret the joy that they could give and share, she contained only the shame that she had borne—shame, unless a miracle of human love delivered her, was all she had to give. And she moved, therefore, through their small community like a woman mysteriously visited by God, like a terrible example of humility, or like a holy fool. […]There were people in the church, and even men carrying the gospel, who mocked Deborah behind her back; but their mockery was uneasy; they could never be certain but that they might be holding up to scorn the greatest saint among them, the Lord’s peculiar treasure and most holy vessel.
“I asked my God to forgive me,” he said. “But I didn’t want no harlot’s son.”
“Esther weren’t no harlot,” she said quietly.
“She weren’t my wife. I couldn’t make her my wife. I already had you”—and he said the last words with venom “Esther’s mind weren’t on the Lord—she’d of dragged me right on down to Hell with her.”
“She mighty near has,” said Deborah.
