But it’s really not so complicated. If you want to understand a man’s motivations, all you have to do is ask him: What would you do with fifty thousand dollars?
-- Narrator (Chapter 10: Duchess)

Importance: Duchess’s test for understanding a man’s motivations is self-revealing in the conclusion of the novel when Emmett puts Duchess in a leaky row boat with his portion of Woolly’s inheritance. Because Duchess is so greedy, he sacrifices his own life when he attempts to keep from losing the money.

Regardless of who had been provoked by who, or whom by whom, when Emmett hit the Snyder kid at the county fair, he took on a debt just as surely as his father had when he had mortgaged the family farm.
-- Narrator (Chapter 9: Duchess)

Importance: Even though Duchess has a skewed sense of reality and morality, he does understand why Emmett feels he needs to let Jake hit him. Duchess...