Chapter 5 of 16 · 5'03"
Over a morning of salon gossip about weddings and lost romance, Shelby suddenly goes into a diabetic reaction, and M'Lynn explains, 'She's a diabetic.' The women scramble for juice to bring her round, and afterwards the talk turns to her news that she cannot have children.
Shelby Talks About Her Wedding Trip
Truvy Says She Misses Romance
At Truvy's salon, Shelby talks about her wedding trip while the women joke about romance. Mid-conversation she has a diabetic reaction, and they hurry to give her juice. M'Lynn explains that her daughter is a diabetic, and once Shelby revives, the talk turns to her fear that she cannot give Jackson children.
The scene works because the film keeps its two tones in the same room. For most of it, the women are doing what they always do — trading jokes, teasing each other about romance, and laughing at husbands. Then Shelby's body interrupts, and everything changes: the banter stops, hands reach for juice, and the women move as if they have done this many times. 'She's a diabetic,' M'Lynn says, calmly, to the newcomer, and the calm is the telling detail, because it means this is not new. The comedy and the crisis share the same setting on purpose. Only after Shelby is steady does the real subject surface: she may not be able to have children, and she is frightened of what that means for Jackson. The salon, which began as a place of gossip, becomes the place where the hardest news is said out loud.
A1–C2 is the CEFR scale. Cards above the level you pick fade, and playback will not auto-pause on them.
“Never say a thing like that to a woman who's marinating 50 pounds of crab claws.”
Kitchen detail crashes into wedding panic, making the scolding both funny and real.
Informal
“Either shoot it, stuff it, or marry it.”
Three short options reduce a whole set of values to a punchline about hunting and marriage.
Informal
“He enclosed this carport so I could support him.”
A home-improvement detail delivers a whole marriage's bitterness without a single complaint.
Informal
“The last romantic thing my husband did for me was back in 1972.”
A year fixes the whole drought of romance, funnier and sadder than any complaint.
Informal
Up next · 06a glutton for punishmentThe scene: Annelle Isn't Sure She's MarriedShe has a diabetic reaction: she suddenly becomes shaky and confused, and the women hurry to give her juice to bring her blood sugar back up.
Because her doctor has told her that children are not possible for her, and she is afraid Jackson will lose his chance to be a father.
He is not worried. He jokes that there are plenty of children who need good homes, and that they will adopt ten of them or buy them if they have to.
It means something that really delights you or wins you over. Truvy uses it about a romantic moment she finds irresistible.
She says she misses it. The last romantic thing her husband did, she jokes, was enclose the carport so she could support him.
