1- This chapter is specially funny for me. Jeanette starts realizing that all women around her married not man they admired, or loved, or even found attractive. But they married them because they had to. Or in Jeanette’s mind: because that’s the only way to have babies. There are a few of handsome men, but many are monsters. And that’s ok, because we want to have babies and that is the only way. I find also funny because she was adopted and we dont need to be married to adopt, but she is still repeating the idea of babies. That is also the chapter Jeanette realizes her mom lied to her about a storybook she would always read, and she also found that she was adopted. Her mom never told that for her, and I imagine what an awful way to learn about it. Strong relationships are based on trust and this is in a human universal level. If she already started realizing her mom lies, she would not be able to trust her. And most lovingly, this is the chapter she meets Melanie and starts working, somehow relating to personal pleasures and independency, since she would be working and earning her own money, but also exploring the understanding that she can also like other people and have her own perceptions and thoughts while sharing it with people who respect her as a person. It might have been a very new feeling to her, because until there, she was very invalidaded or unrespected by her mom.

2 – The scene I would like to develop on is when Jeanette’s mom starts realizing she is at an age she could already be romantically involved with somebody. She is a woman with much experience from the mundane world, so she might have even perceived some early signs of Jeanette’s attraction for Melanie. In the scene, she pointed for a boy in church she would approve Jeannete to have a romance with. So Jeanette’s describe her perception of it: “She meant Graham, a newish convert, who’d moved over to our town from Stockport. I was teaching him to play the guitar, and trying to make him understand the importance of regular bible study.” In this scene, her mom is also mentioning about the unfornate decision she took as a young woman when living and working in Paris, about this man she meet and that she did things she would not be proud of. In this scene, her mom is trying to teach Jeanette about bad and good decisions we can do, while teaching from her own experience. She does not want Jeanette with Melanie, and in love and patience she tries to guide Jeanette to what would be socially right that is to be with a man. It is not a very well chosen option, because as Jeanette described he was just a newish convert that she was teaching the importance of regular spiritual studies, but in Jeanette mom’s mind, it was still better than another girl. This intentional action of her had a purpose of guide Jeanette to a decision that would be right in her view.