“It was true. Men could be with whomever they pleased. But women had to date better, kinder, richer, and bright, bright, bright, or else people got embarrassed.”
As a middle-aged actress down on her luck, Sidra moves to Chicago and begins dating Walter, a local mechanic but harbors no real feelings or interest for him. Consequently, her friends scold her for sleeping with an unsophisticated man who is less intelligent than she is. As the quotation accentuates, both Sidra and her friends are aware that such a relationship is bound to be disastrous because the dynamic is different for women. Hereafter, Sidra actually gets embarrassed by Walter who leaves her and she ends up resenting him despite it being a consequence of her own doing.
“She had expected a pistol to seem light and natural-a seamless extension of her angry feral self.”
Following the extramarital affairs of her husband, Ruth takes charge of her own life by taking extreme measures. However, despite contemplating these acts in her mind she still has doubts if she is actually capable of them. Thus, the assertion follows her initial training with a gun, which she thought would reciprocate her internal anger. She eventually goes through with the act of violence which however does not offer any purgation on her part as she expected. The statement is also allegorical in that her actions did not really scratch the itch as she hoped.
“Every arrangement in life carried with it the sadness, the sentimental shadow, of its not being something else, but only itself.”
Agnes having led a life full of adventures in New York as an artist finds herself moving back to Iowa to lead a mediocre life. Even though she does not view the shift as some sort of compromise at first she gradually regrets her choices. Moreover, her marriage suffers especially after unsuccessfully trying to conceive for a couple of years. Thus, the statement encompasses the sentiment of accepting life for what it is even if it does not turn out, as you initially wanted it to.
