Maybe there was no system at all to the violence and no one, not even the keepers nor the kept, knew what happened or why.
After receiving his first beating, Elwood realizes that the rules he believes the world to be governed by—ones of justice, actions and reaction, logic, and sense—are irrelevant at Nickel Academy. At Nickel, violence comes without clear reason; instead, it is senselessly cruel, with little regard for individual life or safety. The boys mean nothing to the administration and the school supervisors seek to punish them, even though they appear to not even understand the purpose of this punishment. This senselessness also serves as an allegory for the larger structures of institutionalized racism.
More than once Elwood caught himself swinging the scythe with too much violence, like he was attacking the grass with a leather strap. He'd stop and tell his heart to slow down.
This quote emphasizes how Elwood differs from the rest of the boys and men at Nickel Academy. He refuses to succumb to the urge for senseless violence. Instead, he clings to his humanity and to his "heart," retaining a strong sense of ethical justice and morality, even as all systems of value for the human life appear to deteriorate around him. Elwood exhibits a self-awareness that is unique within the world of Nickel.
Elwood's beating at the White House had him scarred all over, not just his legs. It had weeviled deep into his personality.
Although Elwood resists the moral corruption of Nickel Academy and attempts to stick to his moral values, the effects of the school's cruelty are undeniable. This quote comes towards the end of the narrative arc that takes place in the past, right before Elwood's death. He has been beaten down by his time at Nickel Academy. The trauma he experiences is not only physical, but seeps into his consciousness, penetrating his psyche and leaving the "heart" that he so desperately attempts to protect scarred as well.
All those lost geniuses—sure not all of them were geniuses, Chickie Pete for example was not solving special relativity—but they had been denied even the simple pleasure of being ordinary.
In this quote, Turner reflects on the effects that Nickel Academy had on its students. A running theme throughout the flash-forward sections, in which Turner (as "Elwood") ruminates on his time at Nickel and attempts to adjust to life in the "normal" world, is the process of confronting trauma. How do the boys live after witnessing and experiencing the horrors of Nickel Academy? Chickie Pete, for example, becomes an alcoholic. Against his will, his time at Nickel stripped him of the opportunity to become something great as he was crippled by trauma. How many potentially great lives are lost to abuse? This is one of the central questions that the novel explores.
All the men on the website were white. Who spoke for the black boys? It was time someone did.
At the end of the novel, Turner experiences a change of heart. He decides to stop trying to repress all of the memories he has of Nickel. Instead, he feels a desire for justice—a feeling of duty, to honor the memory of Elwood and seek some form of retribution for his unfair death. His motives emerge partially out of the racism he sees at play within public discussions of Nickel. The men who speak out about the school are white, even though the boys who suffered the most at the school were the black boys like Elwood and Turner. Elwood decides that it is his turn to speak up.
Elwood bent to a code—Dr. King gave that code shape, articulation, and meaning.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches, which Elwood plays from a record that his grandmother Harriet gives him, are instrumental in shaping Elwood's attitude towards justice. He is dedicated to the civil rights movement and embodies a belief in non-violence, refusing to replicate the same physical abuse he sees between the boys at Nickel or participate in the gangs that run rampant throughout the school. Instead, he intervenes in fights only when he sees that they are unfair or cruel, as in the fight between Big Mike, Lonnie, and Corey.
"I ain't faking—that soap powder is awful," Turner said. "But it's me choosing, not anyone else."
Even though Turner usually states that he doesn't care about resisting Nickel Academy, it becomes clear that he does resist the school in some ways—ways that are more passive, but still contain an element of rebelliousness. Rather than work, he eats soap powder to intentionally make himself sick. The power in this action comes from the fact that it is him inflicting harm on himself, not harm inflicted upon him by others. He seizes power by taking back the choice to experience pain, thus reclaiming his bodily autonomy from Nickel.
"Maybe we'd pretended to be on the same side before and it was all equal, but now it wasn't."
After one of the men who works with Turner makes fun of him for always acting nice and pleasant with the white customers, Turner experiences a change. He finds that he can't bring himself to pretend to be nice anymore. He realizes that his niceties were only an attempt to appease the white customers and create an illusion, a vision of a world where black people don't acknowledge that they suffer unequal treatment. Turner no longer feels like he can participate in that charade and begins to mock the white customers, which eventually leads to the crime that lands him in Nickel Academy.
Many an afternoon, Turner had seen [Harper's] posture click into its proper place when a houseman or supervisor showed up.
Through Harper's character, Whitehead explores the ways in which white people can embody different forms of racism. Despite the fact that Harper shows more humanity towards Elwood and Turner, his behavior is still racist at its core. He takes up the disguise or appearance of being a "proper" white person—i.e., a racist white person, like the other school administrators—when necessary. He is a false hope for the boys, and in the end, it is he who kills Elwood.
Earned his certificate and feeling proud and it was one of those moments that makes you realize you have no one in your life who cares about the occasional triumph.
After he escapes Nickel Academy, Turner decides to get his GED. This action is symbolically important, since it was Elwood who initially was more dedicated to pursuing his education. When taking on Elwood's identity, Turner also comes to subconsciously live out some of Elwood's values, whether he realizes it or not. He pursues his education, as if living out the future that Elwood could have had had he survived their run from Nickel.
