"Ukhule! Ukhule!"
The last words uttered by Beauty before she passed away are mentioned above and can be translated as "Live long". Beauty died as a result of being infected with HIV from her husband and her wish was to see her closest friends chose a different path and have a different life. This quote is mentioned time and time again by the main characters and it is used by the four women left as a reminder to fight for themselves and for their well-being.
"Cordelia lay alone on the floor, wondering how her life will be without her husband."
After Cordelia confronted her husband and asked him to get tested for HIV, he became angry. The husband beat Cordelia and then just left the house, leaving the impression that he will never return back. Realizing that she remained on her own, Cordelia became regretting what she had done. This quote is important because it transmits the idea that even though the women in the story wanted to take care of themselves, they were still dependent on their husbands and living without them was still harder than the prospect of living with someone who abused them.
"Luvo threw her on the bed, ripped her clothes off, and then proceeded to have his way with her. Edith was powerless. All she could do was wait for everything to end quickly."
When Edith suggested to her husband he should get tested, he grew angry and then raped the young woman. Edith had no power to fight back and after everything was done she realized that she could not even go and report him to the police since the village in which she lived did not believe that men could rape their wives. This scene appears at the end of the book and it is used to transmit the idea that women did not have power over anything, not even their own bodies. Each woman in the novel realized this by the end of the book and this realization only pushed them to the depths of despair and pain.
