“Then he reached up under her hair and took her earrings out. They were dangly earrings, gold leaves her husband had given her for their anniversary. He stripped her; he had all the time in the world. She felt like a child being put to bed. She didn’t have to do anything with him, for him. No duties, all she had to do was be there.”

The image of the woman lying on the bed and allowing her weekend lover to remove her earrings, undress her, and pleasure her conveys her desire to be taken care of. This imagery also conjures notions of voluntary inactivity; she no longer wants to play the assigned roles of the responsible mother and wife, and longs instead to have no one expecting anything of her. She compares herself to “a child being put to bed”—a metaphor that evokes notions of innocence, youthful freedom, and docility. The man in this scene is also “doing things to her,” or caring for her without being asked, much like a parent might do for a child.

“My mother turns and walks clipety-clipety back down the slippy floor, with everybody knowing she thought she’d won when she didn’t win. And suddenly she is no longer walking, but running, running down in the bright white light, past the cloakroom, towards the door, her hair flailing out like a horse’s tail behind her.”

In “Men and Woman,” the young narrator is surprised by her mother’s bold decision to walk to the front of the dance hall in her high heels to claim her raffle prize because she is unaccustomed to seeing her mother assert herself. The passage thus contributes to the theme of Female Agency Constrained by Domesticity and Gender Roles. The mother character usually assumes the subservient, submissive role; in this scene, she is defying this role. At the same time, the mother loses her nerve and pride and races out of the hall at the passage’s end; she flees because she feels ashamed for asserting herself.

“He runs fast and jumps. His feet clear the canyon, but then the strangest thing happens: her hands melt and the boy drops backwards into the darkness. The au pair just stands on the edge and watches him fall.”

In “Where the Water’s Deepest,” the au pair’s recurring dream of idly watching the boy she cares for jump to his death reveals her fears of failing to fulfill her societal duty. As an au pair, she is charged with caring for the boy, while quashing all of her personal desires and impulses. In the dreams, she “fails” when her hands “melt and the boy drops”—his fate in turn means losing her job and being ostracized for her failure to protect the boy. Her fear is a symptom of her entrapment, which speaks to the theme of Female Agency Constrained by Domesticity and Gender Roles.

“She remembered reading somewhere that a fear of heights masks an attraction to falling. Suddenly, that made some kind of terrifying sense to her. If she didn’t think of jumping off, standing on the edge wouldn’t cost her a thought. She imagined falling, imagined how that might feel, to dive down, be lost like that, mean everything for moments only, then be gone. She imagined the relief of having everything over and done with; then she backed inside and locked the door.”

The image of the au pair standing on the balcony and considering jumping over the edge creates an ominous tone. The au pair realizes that although she is terrified of heights she might in fact want to die by suicide. This scene conveys the profundity of the au pair’s entrapment within her job and her societal position. She is so powerless that she is even afraid to take her life in her own hands and to make the decision to have “everything over and done with.” Even this decision would mark her a failure.

“She rose late, drank strong tea, made a ritual of cleaning out the grates. She grew thin and stopped attending mass. Neighbors knocked on her door and peered in through the windows, but she did not answer. A powder of rust-colored ash fell over the house, accumulated on every horizontal surface. It seemed that every time she moved, dust rose.”

In “Love in the Tall Grass,” the end of Cordelia’s affair with the doctor consigns her to a reclusive life where she is rendered irrelevant to her society. She voluntarily locks herself up in her house, refusing to answer any calls or to make contact with the outside world. This is a form of self-punishment she believes she deserves because of her affair with the doctor and her seeming failure or “inability” to make him love her enough to commit to her.

“On the fourth day he got up and followed my mother like a shadow around the house. When I asked her if I too would find things in my dreams, she said she hoped that would never happen. I did not ask why. Even though I was a child, I had long since learned that why was a word my mother hated.”

In “Storms,” Ellen’s youthful curiosity over her mother’s prophetic dreams forebodes her mother’s fate at the short story’s end. The dreams initially appear magical to Ellen, but soon prove a symptom of her mother’s tenuous mental state, which devolves in the wake of her grandmother’s death. Ellen wants to know why—constantly searching for answers to who she is and why things are the way they are. However, she ultimately cannot explain the Destabilizing Nature of Loss and Grief, and how these experiences banish her mother to the margins of society.

“I suppose I’ve my own reasons for coming here. Maybe I need a little of what my mother has. Just a little. I take a small share of it for my own protection. It is like a vaccination. People don’t understand, but you have to face the worst possible case to be able for anything.”

Ellen’s decision to regularly visit her mother at the mental institution is a symptom of her curiosity about her own interiority. She is trying to stave off loss and grief, too, and she does so by “collecting” bits of her mother’s condition—as if holding on to her mother’s symptoms might protect her from the same fate.

“The day she realized that, she got drunk in the living room, started right after breakfast on scotch with ice all the way up to the top. As soon as he came home and saw her lounging in her underwear, panties stuck to her in the heat, sitting in his armchair, air all sluggish, room hot as hell, fans on full blast, he knew she’d walk. He could tell. And she knew he could. The day you find out you’ve just wasted ten years is no picnic. And she didn’t even want to hit him; she just wanted to kick herself.”

This passage uses vivid imagery to convey Roslin’s newfound boldness and reclamation of her rebellious spirit. As soon as she realizes she has “wasted ten years” of her life in a loveless marriage, she pours herself a healthy glass of scotch, strips down to her underwear, and lounges in her husband’s chair. The image of the scotch filled to the brim conjures notions of plenty and excess, while the images of Roslin in her panties on her husband’s chair captures her defiance to her prescribed role as his wife. At the same time, Roslin’s unapologetic behaviors contrast with her self-deprecation at the passage’s end; she is more angry at herself than her husband.

“I had enough of that, and Cora didn’t seem to mind, said it was up to me. I burned my schoolbooks slowly in a barrel out in the yard, pages of algebra, home economics, continents curling up in flame and diminishing to ash. But now sometimes I miss it because there’s nothing else to do, nobody my own age, just the afternoon soaps and payday and whatever brain wave Cora thinks up in the days before she gets her period.”

In “The Singing Cashier,” the image of the narrator burning her school things outside her house creates a rebellious, self-assertive mood. At the same time, the references to “diminishing ash,” “afternoon soaps,” “pay day,” and her sister’s menstrual cycle effect notions of banality, and quotidian entrapment. The narrator felt assertive when she dropped out of school, but this rebellious act only quickened her entrance into domestic entrapment.

“‘One runny egg,’ I say, sliding the yellow eye and the fried bread onto a chipped plate, a little border of forget-me-nots growing in a blue snarl around its edge. ‘Get that down you,’ I say. ‘You’ll feel better.’”

In the closing scene of “The Singing Cashier,” the narrator and her sister reverse roles. Throughout the majority of the story, Cora plays the role of the caretaker and provider. In this scene—after the sisters discover the news about the Wests—the narrator assumes the nurturing role, offering Cora an egg and bread. The image of the runny egg, the chipped plate, and the forget-me-nots create a melancholy mood; the narrator is playing at a role she ultimately cannot fulfill, and which cannot protect against their vulnerable state.

“‘It’s like the bitch is still here. I feel it. The children feel it,’ he says. ‘Did you see her today, just spilling her drink, how upset she was? Maybe this just isn’t necessary. All that psychobabble bullshit about confronting the past.’ He reaches out to turn the fan up a notch. He feels hot in these rooms, too hot for comfort, even though it’s autumn.”

In “Burns,” the father vents to his second wife Robin about his first wife, attributing the negative energy in the old house to her. He uses violent, assertive language, which creates an aggressive mood. He feels so plagued by memories of his ex-wife that his body temperature rises; the past is alive in the present and threatening the man’s peace of mind. The house is a container for his negative memories.

“They do not smell their dinner, burning. They are watching. They are listening. Every one, listening. They can hear their own heartbeats. When a drop of water falls, plop, into the sink, they move violently, as one.”

The image of the father, the kids, and Robin poised amidst a lull in their cockroach attack conveys notions of togetherness and unity. Each family member is at alert, all moving in unison when they hear a sound—ready to kill the next insect that appears. The insects are a manifestation of their negative memories, which they are working together to eradicate.

“They don’t know the half of it, don’t know the disguises I’ve made for them, how I took twenty years off their hard-earned faces, washed the honey-blond rinses out of their hair, how I put them in another country and changed their names. I have turned these women inside out like dirty old socks. The lies I’ve told.”

In “Quare Name for a Boy,” the narrator tries to assert authority over her female family members by privately reminding herself of the stories she has written about them. She has fictionalized the women out of revenge—manipulating their characters just slightly so she might claim authority over them. This is a primary act of self-assertion and self-liberation for the narrator, who feels perpetually inferior to the women who raised her.

“Whatever you say, I’ll manage. I will live out of a water barrel and check the skies. I will learn fifteen types of wind and know the weight of tomorrow’s rain by the rustle in the sycamores. Make nettle soup and dandelion bread, ask for nothing. And I won’t comfort you. I will not be the woman who shelters her man same as he’s a boy. That part of my people ends with me.”

In this passage, the narrator of “Quare Name for a Boy” makes a vow to herself about her future. She is promising herself that she will not involve her unborn baby’s father because she does not want to repeat generational patterns. She does not want to mimic her female relatives’ behaviors and relational patterns, because she is determined to claim her identity beyond them.

“So many things, all coming back. Betty feels her blood racing, but that is all in the past. She can think of herself now. She has earned that right. Her father is dead. She can see things as they are, not through his eyes, nor Louisa’s.”

In “Sisters,” Betty’s sister Louisa’s presence at the family homestead disrupts Betty’s tenuous sense of happiness and independence. Just having her around makes Betty’s “blood race” with memories of their parents’ lopsided treatment and Louisa’s historical unkindness. In an attempt to overcome these memories, Betty mentally reminds herself that Louisa is not a ready part of her life any longer. Her use of short, declarative sentences in the passage’s latter half conveys her attempt to maintain control over her emotions and to tamp down her negative memories.

“Hanson was silent. Healthy, lilac sunlight was sliding through the trees. Hanson wanted to get out—it was a mistake to come—but he waited for Greer to make some move to allow him to take his leave. The blind flapped, was sucked in by the draft.”

In “The Scent of Winter,” Hanson’s physical immobility at Greer’s conveys his passive nature. Hanson has invited himself over to Greer’s, but feels trapped throughout the visit. He does not move because he both wants to dismiss himself—for fear of associating with Greer—and fears confronting Greer—because he knows what the man is capable of. The references to the purple sky and the blinds flapping create an ominous mood, which foreshadows the story’s end—and thus the weight of Hanson’s passivity.

“He liked feeling useful, liked the greedy sound of the bucket glug-glugging the well water, and then the shrill spill into the milk can, wheeling it back along the icy road, and the frost shimmering like tinsel on the hedges.”

In “The Burning Palms,” the young boy’s desire to help his mother and grandmother conveys his attempts to fulfill his prescribed role as the proverbial young man of the family. This is particularly pronounced in light of the boy’s father’s drinking and gambling habits. The boy wants to achieve a more noble version of manhood, engaging and delighting in his work and care of the women in his family. The passage nuances the collection’s overarching explorations of domesticity and gender roles.

“She ignites a ribbon of lamp oil in the cottage. It doesn’t take long for the parlor curtains to catch fire. The wallpaper is burning, the palm trees are alight, and the thatch is ablaze when the old woman takes the boy’s arm. They start walking, turn the bend.”

Gran’s decision to burn down her own house is the ultimate autonomous act. For months, the town council has been begging her to vacate the residence so they can demolish it, but she has refused. At the story’s end, she takes her fate into her own hands by destroying the house on her own terms. She is destroying the place where her daughter died, and destroying the place that masqueraded as a cocoon from the outside world.

“She may never forgive him. She backs away. He hears blame, razor-sharp words flying like knives across the room, across his head. The words slice through him. It is the truth. She is tearing him asunder, putting the knife in; she is twisting the knife and taking pleasure in twisting it. But Frank Corso feels better. It is a start. It is better than nothing.”

At the end of “Passport Soup,” Frank Corso and his wife have an intense altercation that offers Frank the first semblance of hope since his daughter Elizabeth disappeared. The narrator uses visual and sensory imagery to enact Frank’s physiological discomfort amidst the fight. Language like “razor-sharp,” “knives,” “slice,” “tearing,” and “twisting” captures how significantly the wife’s accusations are impacting Frank. At the same time, this brutality is a comfort because Frank feels he deserves it. He believes he has failed as a husband and father and is glad his wife is holding him accountable.

“‘You play your cards right and this could all be yours someday,’ she says. ‘He’s got no kids. You wonder why I married him, but I was thinking of you all along.’”

In this intimate conversation between the young man and his mother in “Close to the Water’s Edge,” the young man discovers the real reason why his mother married the millionaire, Richard, after divorcing his father. Years ago, she told him people couldn’t help who they fell in love with, but in this dialogue, the mother reveals that she orchestrated the relationship for her son’s benefit; her words imply that the marriage has also insulated her. Her admission makes the young man hold the significance of his mother’s powerlessness—which starkly resembles his grandmother’s powerlessness in her own loveless marriage years prior.

“He thinks of his grandmother coming to the ocean. She said if she had her life to live again, she would never have climbed back into that car. She’d have stayed behind and turned into a streetwalker sooner than go home. Nine children she bore him. When her grandson asked what made her get back in, her answer was, ‘Those were the times I lived in. That’s what I believed. I thought I didn’t have a choice.’”

The young man reflects on his late grandmother’s unfulfilling marriage while he is out alone on the beach. His immediate surroundings transport him to his grandmother’s account of her own beachside visit—creating a tangible link between the past and the present. The young man is indeed forced to acknowledge how his mother’s plight is no different from his late grandmother’s. The “times” have arguably changed because time has passed, but his mother still feels that she doesn’t “have a choice” about her own fate—she doesn’t have the choice to follow her heart. The passage reiterates the theme of Female Agency Constrained by Domesticity and Gender Roles.

“He held her hand on the gas flame. Things got out of hand. Apparently she made a stab at him with a corkscrew. He said the gun went off too soon for his liking. He said that whore turned her last trick, said she’d never tell another lie. He turned real quiet when the beer dried up.”

In “You Can’t Be Too Careful,” the first-person narrator Jay renders Butch’s wife’s violent death in this brief, clipped manner. The story is nine pages, but the depiction of Butch’s wife’s death—arguably the most intense and critical plot point in the story—in just a few, simple sentences. The presentation of the scene enacts how the woman’s story—and her life and death—are actively being obscured and forgotten.

“He takes me out there, puts his shirt on me, with blood all over the damned thing. Then he takes off, I’m left with all that and a story he knows nobody will believe. Isn’t that just brilliant? I mean, that’s like Einstein, that’s so smart. He does something and knows no matter who I tell it to, they won’t believe it.”

Jay exclaims over Butch’s ability to frame him and get away with murder, casting Butch as an intelligent hero, rather than a debased criminal. His representation of Butch speaks to how the media will often erase a female victim’s story and laud the abuser. Jay spends little to no time thinking about Butch’s wife, and instead devotes several paragraphs to marveling at Butch’s cleverness.