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Mrs. Winterbottom
Mr. Winterbottom is Phoebe and Prudence’s father and Mrs. Winterbottom’s husband. Both Sal and Phoebe think of Mr. Winterbottom as upstanding and stoic. Sal describes him as a stereotypical father: he eats dinner with his family every night seated at the head of the table, with his white shirtsleeves rolled up and his tie still around his neck. He speaks loudly and clearly—and like his daughters, he doesn’t pay much attention to Mrs. Winterbottom. Phoebe believes her father doesn’t care about Mrs. Winterbottom when he refuses to go to the police after his wife disappears. Instead of panicking, Mr. Winterbottom does his best to keep his daughters’ lives as normal as possible, while also trying to reach out and track down his wife. Sal doesn’t believe Mr. Winterbottom cares at all about Mrs. Winterbottom until she and Phoebe catch him crying while doing the dishes one night. When Mrs. Winterbottom returns accompanied by a young man, Mr. Winterbottom is upset at first—but not for the reasons that Mrs. Winterbottom expected him to be. Mrs. Winterbottom reveals that the young man, Mike, is her son; she gave him up for adoption before she met her husband, and she never spoke about it out of fear of not looking “respectable” enough to Mr. Winterbottom. But Mr. Winterbottom isn’t interested in respectability—what bothers him is that his wife didn’t feel like she could share this with him. He ultimately accepts Mike as a member of the family.
Mr. Winterbottom Quotes in Walk Two Moons
The Walk Two Moons quotes below are all either spoken by Mr. Winterbottom or refer to Mr. Winterbottom. 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
From what I could gather, Mr. Winterbottom worked in an office, creating road maps. Mrs. Winterbottom baked and cleaned and did laundry and grocery shopping. I had a funny feeling that Mrs. Winterbottom did not actually like all this baking and cleaning and laundry and shopping, and I’m not quite sure why I had that feeling because if you just listened to the words she said, it sounded as if she was Mrs. Supreme Housewife.
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Chapter 11
Quotes
Ben touched Phoebe’s arm. She flinched. “Ha,” he said. “Gotcha. You’re jumpy, too, Free Bee.”
And that, too, bothered me. I had already noticed how tense Phoebe’s whole family seemed, how tidy, how respectable, how thumpingly stiff. Was I becoming like that? Why were they like that? A couple times I had seen Phoebe’s mother try to touch Phoebe or Prudence or Mr. Winterbottom, but they all drew back from her. It was as if they had outgrown her.
Had I been drawing away from my own mother? Did she have empty spaces left over? Was that why she left?
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Get the entire Walk Two Moons LitChart as a printable PDF.
Mr. Winterbottom Quotes in Walk Two Moons
The Walk Two Moons quotes below are all either spoken by Mr. Winterbottom or refer to Mr. Winterbottom. 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
From what I could gather, Mr. Winterbottom worked in an office, creating road maps. Mrs. Winterbottom baked and cleaned and did laundry and grocery shopping. I had a funny feeling that Mrs. Winterbottom did not actually like all this baking and cleaning and laundry and shopping, and I’m not quite sure why I had that feeling because if you just listened to the words she said, it sounded as if she was Mrs. Supreme Housewife.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11
Quotes
Ben touched Phoebe’s arm. She flinched. “Ha,” he said. “Gotcha. You’re jumpy, too, Free Bee.”
And that, too, bothered me. I had already noticed how tense Phoebe’s whole family seemed, how tidy, how respectable, how thumpingly stiff. Was I becoming like that? Why were they like that? A couple times I had seen Phoebe’s mother try to touch Phoebe or Prudence or Mr. Winterbottom, but they all drew back from her. It was as if they had outgrown her.
Had I been drawing away from my own mother? Did she have empty spaces left over? Was that why she left?
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
