Quote 10
They are not willing to accept, to adjust, to settle for something less than their ideal of happiness. (12.3)
Ashima is thinking here of Gogol's divorce from Moushumi. Which brings up the question, does having an ideal of happiness actually cause unhappiness because it leads to disappointed hopes? Should characters learn to settle?
Quote 11
Ashima feels lonely suddenly, horribly, permanently alone, and briefly, turned away from the mirror, she sobs for her husband. She feels overwhelmed by the thought of the move she is about to make, to the city that was once home and is now in its own way foreign. (12.7)
While at the beginning of the novel Ashima cries for Calcutta, at the end of the novel she cries for her husband and their life together, signaling a shift in the way she thinks of home and happiness.
Quote 12
There is a thrill to whittling down her possessions to little more than what she'd come with, to those three rooms in Cambridge in the middle of a winter's night. (12.6)
Ashima chucks all her possession as she begins her new lifestyle, spending equal time in India and America. It's exciting for her, and takes her back to her younger days as a newlywed in Cambridge, when she had nothing much but love for her husband and her soon-to-be-born son.