How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Page)
Quote #4
"They train you to find a husband," she said. "They poke at your panties in the middle of the night, to see if you are still whole. They listen when you pee, to find out if you're peeing too loud. If you pee loud, it means you've got big spaces between your legs. They make you burn your fingers learning to cook. Then still you have nothing." (21.137)
Atie sounds off on the injustice of being a woman in her culture. And more than that, she articulates her disappointment in the cultural norms: she believed that if she did all the right things, she would be rewarded with the usual things in life. But she's learned that sometimes, all the things a woman endures does not get her what she wants or deserves. There's no further lesson here: we're just meant to let that sink in.
Quote #5
"If it is a girl, the midwife will cut the child's cord and go home. Only the mother will be left in the darkness to hold her child. There will be no lamps, no candles, no more light." (22.146)
We really don't need to draw a point about the injustice of this unequal treatment; that's obvious. But we'll just point out that this kind of valuation builds on Sophie's quiet assessment that being a woman is problematic, even a negative. It's as though her culture simply doesn't know what do with women, so they hide them away in the darkness.
Quote #6
The men were singing about a woman who flew without her skin at night, and when she came back home, she found her skin peppered and could not put it back on. Her husband had done it to teach her a lesson. He ended up killing her. (23.150)
Again, Sophie observes that there is no space in her culture for a woman who steps outside her expected role. The folk tale symbolizes hurtful male behavior that ends up not only damaging women, but also crippling an entire society (we are assuming that the husband in the tale did not intend to kill his wife). It is worth noting that many of the marriage folk tales recalled by Sophie are rife with violence against women, which also makes an impression on her thinking about her place in society.