The feeling of being imprisoned
The narrator’s feeling of being kept in a prison is illustrated by the way her mother grooms her hair: “My brother’s hair was cut short but otherwise left free and uncombed, while mine was allowed to grow longer and longer and my mother combed it twice a day and twisted it into plaits and imprisoned the ends of it in ribbons and rubber bands.”
The narrator’s period
Apart from her mother “imprisoning” her, the narrator thinks that her period is another reason for her lack of freedom. After all, for a few days every month her movements and actions are restricted: “I hated being female. I felt as if I was in chains — chains forged from my own blood tying me to the bed so that I couldn’t run and jump, chains produced by the cells of my own body, chains of shame and humiliation.”
The narrator as a goddess
Because she is fed up with the way her family treats her, she escapes into a world of imagination where she is the one making the rules. In particular, she reverses the relationship between men and women: “I created an imaginary private world for myself in which I was a goddess and men were stupid, helpless creatures at my beck and call. I sat on a high throne in this world of mine, arranging the dolls on chairs, making the boys sit on the floor and telling stories to myself.”
Man falling from his throne
In a patriarchal society, men are in power and considered superior. However, at the faculty of medicine the narrator illustrates that men and women are equal in the eyes of death, and that there is no special biological feature which would warrant the discrimination of women: “A man had fallen from his throne and lay on a dissecting table next to a woman.”
The longing for love
After living alone for some time, the narrator longs for someone she could love. The sensation of heat she experiences because of this is illustrated thus: “The warmth of my bed turned into a blazing furnace and the morning light could do nothing to scatter the dreams of the night.”
