53 pages • 1-hour read
Hot Milk
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Chapters 5-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness, sexual content, emotional abuse, animal cruelty and death, mental illness, and ableism.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Bringing the Sea to Rose”
Gomez invites Rose and Sofia to lunch, but he insists that Sofia not speak. Sofia sees Gomez as a research assistant in the ongoing case of her mother’s illnesses, which shift whenever someone identifies any of them. Gomez orders octopus, even though Rose claims to be allergic, and he reveals that two of her medications contain fish.
Though Rose’s eyes get pink when the food arrives, these symptoms fade as Gomez gets her to talk about her parents. Rose’s parents did not like foreigners, though they died in the care of foreign nurses, and Rose married a Greek man to spite them. Rose and Christos had Sofia after 11 years. Christos then “found God” and left their family when Sofia was five years old. Ingrid texts Sofia to meet her and Matthew at the clinic car, and Gomez ignores Sofia as she leaves.
Sofia greets Ingrid at the car, and Matthew shaves in the driver’s seat. Matthew greets Sofia, who excuses herself to go back to lunch. Ingrid hopes to see Sofia later, and Matthew offers to bring the car’s paperwork to their table. Sofia returns and sees Rose excited, making her remember how her mother has slept alone since Christos left. A cat scratches Rose’s ankle and she notices, which makes both Sofia and Gomez suspicious, as Rose claimed to have no feeling in her legs.
Matthew brings the paperwork, and Rose begs him to help her home. It takes Rose a long time to walk to Matthew, and Gomez tells Sofia that Rose is putting a lot of effort into walking poorly. Gomez is not sure he can cure Rose. He tells Sofia to do something bold; he has noticed Sofia mimicking Rose’s symptoms. Gomez suspects Matthew graffitied the word “quack” on the clinic, since Matthew’s friend works for a pharmaceutical company that has been harassing Gomez.
That evening, Sofia meets Ingrid and Matthew. Matthew steps away to talk with Ingrid’s boss at the sewing shop, and Ingrid promises to sew something for Sofia. Sofia gives Ingrid some jasmine and puts it in her hair. Ingrid’s pupils are huge.
Chapter 6 Summary: “A Case History”
Rose takes a shower and laments the shape of her body. Sofia listens as Julieta takes a case history of Rose’s past illnesses and current complaints. Sofia watches a David Bowie concert and compares Julieta’s questioning to the kind of questioning Sofia knows from ethnography.
Rose’s father was manically active, while her mother had depression. Sofia does not want to be associated with Rose’s history. Rose has more than 20 complaints, which shift and change. Julieta tries to get Rose to move her foot, but she cannot and insists that she wants her feet cut off. Julieta gives Sofia her card and invites Sofia to her gallery. Gomez enters and chastises Julieta for being tired. Sofia wonders how Medusa felt and which bathroom she would use. Sofia leaves and finds the graffiti Gomez mentioned, but it actually refers to “sunshine” as “sexy” and doesn’t say “Quack.”
The other narrator notes that the Greek girl is alone and wonders if they should offer to lend her some money.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Hunting and Gathering”
Sofia watches Ingrid try to kill a lizard with a miniature bow and arrow. Sofia brought pizza, which Ingrid does not want. Sofia appreciates Ingrid’s beauty and strength. Ingrid misses her shot and blames Sofia’s shadow, so she rushes Sofia and picks her up. Ingrid tells Sofia to go study somewhere, but Sofia is studying Ingrid. She wonders why Ingrid views her as a “creature” and thinks she belongs to Ingrid.
In the afternoon, Sofia goes swimming and gets stung by multiple jellyfish. The injury hut student asks why she went swimming, and Sofia is distracted by how aroused she is. She wants to have sex with the student, but he only gives her a form to fill out. She puts “monster” as her occupation, and the student calls her “beautiful.”
Sofia struggles to sleep and feels like she is hallucinating. Ingrid visits and tends to Sofia’s stings, as well as applying honey to Sofia’s lips. Ingrid lies down with Sofia and calls her a monster. She licks the honey off Sofia’s lips and plans a trip for Sofia to visit Berlin at Christmas. Sofia wants Ingrid to leave but does not know how to ask. Sofia wants to be bolder.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Boldness”
Gomez recommends that Sofia steal a fish from the market to make her bolder. She considers a monkfish, but the merchant yells at her to not touch the fish. Ingmar’s girlfriend arrives and loudly orders her fish, which provides a distraction. Sofia decides to steal a dorado, pushes it into her basket, and leaves the market.
Sofia brings the fish home and uses the Internet to learn how to gut the fish. She laments that her Greek ancestors would not need the Internet to know how to prepare fish, while her Yorkshire ancestors would have bought fish from the trawlers at the dock.
Pablo’s dog barks incessantly, and Sofia yells to Pablo to untie the dog. Sofia is covered in blood and guts from the fish, making her look like a monster. Pablo threatens to call the police. Sofia grabs him, then she starts making bloody handprints all over the diving school. Pablo brings a bone up to the dog, and Sofia takes a sip of his vermouth.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Austerity and Abundance”
Sofia invites Ingrid to eat the dorado to celebrate freeing Pablo’s dog. Ingrid wears silver and brings Sofia a silk shirt embroidered with Sofia’s initials and the word “beloved.” Ingrid studied geometry in Bavaria and gets sewing work from many places. Sofia asks about Ingrid’s sister, who lives in Dusseldorf, which makes Ingrid tear up. Ingrid says she needs to leave and notes that Sofia makes her feel like she is being studied.
Sofia invites the injury hut student, Juan, to eat with her. Juan notes the damage that Pablo and his dog did after Sofia threatened him. They eat together, swim at night, and have sex.
The other narrator says the Greek girl ripped out their heart with her claws.
Chapters 5-9 Analysis
Rose’s lunch with Gomez and case histories with Julieta provide an opportunity for Levy to present exposition about Rose and Sofia’s past, deepening the text’s exploration of The Struggle for Independence. Sofia is uninvolved, however, as Gomez asks her not to speak during lunch. Sofia notes: “I want to get away from the kinship structures that are supposed to hold me together. To muss up the story I have been told about myself” (63), reflecting her longing to define herself instead of feeling entrapped by her mother’s histories and problems. Not only does Sofia already know Rose’s history, she finds this history to be a series of events that led to her current misfortune. As a self-proclaimed ethnographer, Sofia sees how her mother and father’s histories culminate in Sofia’s own life, and she is desperate to try to change that life. She still does not recognize that she needs to understand Rose in order to break the cycle in which she and Rose are trapped.
As Sofia adjusts to life in Almeria, she begins to question her passivity and lack of agency. On the beach, Sofia sees the Medusa flag and wonders if Medusa “had more power in her life as a monster,” specifically reflecting on how “trying to please everyone all the time” has made Sofia miserable (66). This use of the term “monster,” which repeats throughout the text, is rooted in its contrast with trying to please others, making “monster” mean simply one who acts in their own self-interest. Sofia knows that acting for herself will upset her mother, but this makes her believe that she must choose between freedom as a “monster” and misery as a “good” person. While somewhat aware of Rose’s dishonesty, Sofia lacks the confidence to blame Rose directly, instead blaming Rose’s imaginary illnesses.
To improve her boldness, Gomez recommends Sofia try stealing a fish, which Sofia does. The theft of the fish is less important, however, than the impact it has on Sofia’s ability to confront others and make changes in her own life. Up to this point in the story, Pablo’s dog has been a symbol of disorder and disturbance, as its constant barking upsets Sofia and everyone else in town. Sofia, newly emboldened after her theft, confronts Pablo over freeing the dog, then goes into Pablo’s office and “calmly, slowly, took a tiny sip” (81) of his drink. Not only is Sofia becoming bolder in what she is willing to do, she is also becoming more sure of herself, as marked by her calm decision to take Pablo’s drink. She is not panicking or worried because she is developing a sense of confidence and power, which reinforces how she is slowly developing a better sense of her own agency.
Rose’s illness, too, becomes more clearly defined in this section of the text, as her ability to walk and feel is contrasted with her early desire for amputation, invoking The Blurred Line Between Physical and Psychological Suffering. At lunch, Rose feels a cat scratch her ankle, and Sofia notes: “If she had no feeling in her legs, her mind had made some claws that were pricking her feet” (56), but Gomez also notices this contradiction, and Sofia sees a spot of blood on Rose’s ankle. Later, Sofia notes that Rose can walk to stores near their home, meaning, as Gomez speculated, Rose can walk intermittently. The idea that some pains are in Rose’s mind, while others are real, is the root of the issue between Rose and Sofia. Rose is not honest with Sofia, which makes it impossible for Sofia to tell which of Rose’s ailments are real, while Sofia is not bold enough to confront her mother and end the cycle.
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