“‘Don’t call me that.’” 

Sarah has waited her entire life for the moment when she meets her father. She has coveted her father’s attention and is desperate to make an impression, but Alex is unimpressed. Rather than acknowledge his child, he accuses Mae of attempting to manipulate him. In the above quote, he directly tells Sarah not to call him “Papa,” crushing her hopes and ambitions without hesitation. 

“Pair-a-Dice was wild jubilation. It wed black despair with fear and the foul taste of failure.” 

Sarah finds herself in the slum town Pair-a-Dice, which is populated by Gold Rush opportunists. The name of the town, a pun on the word paradise, is imbued with a heavy sense of irony. The celebratory depravity exists alongside squalid conditions. The alliteration in the quote’s second sentence brings the foulness to life, implying a spluttering, spitting stench that hangs on every word.

“Lord, I’d need a million years to reach this woman. Are you sure this is the one you meant for me?” 

Michael is caught in a difficult situation. As a good Christian man, he is determined to listen to the voice he believes to be God. But when God tells him to marry a prostitute, Michael is momentarily filled with doubt. His inability to resolve this internal tension adds weight to the scene.