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He asked her what she thought she was made for, but she didn’t answer, she only sat rocking and wondered if a one-armed man could put a new roof on her garden house.

The old woman believes herself to be in a comfortable position of power in relation to Shiftlet. This outlook allows her to think that she can get him to do what she wants because he needs what she has: a house and land. Because of his missing arm, she feels this superiority doubly. She has a desired outcome in mind and attempts to use this perceived power imbalance to get it. To this end, she will hardly even engage with him when he asks questions, choosing rather to sit quietly, briefly wondering if her prejudice will be borne out. Her quiet dismissal of Shiftlet is a prime example of the arrogance that he will exploit later in the story.

“Listen here, Mr. Shiftlet,” she said, sliding forward in her chair, “you’d be getting a permanent house and a deep well and the most innocent girl in the world. You don’t need no money. Lemme tell you something: there ain’t any place in the world for a poor disabled friendless drifting man.”

After spending the entirety of the story internally judging and dismissing Shiftlet, the old woman lays out her beliefs about what he should be doing. She has outwardly nudged and suggested that Shiftlet should stay with the Craters, marry Lucynell, and help to keep the plantation running. There has been a kind of playfulness in her dialogues with Shiftlet, but here she lays down what she really thinks: he has no better prospects because of his circumstances, and she is doing him a favor by offering her home and her daughter for him to do with what he will. She considers him to be in no position to negotiate or refuse the offer, but she does not see that he has been working to undermine her from their first interaction.

Previous section Tom T. Shiftlet

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