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 of shame and humiliation.
At the beginning of the novel, the narrator describes her feelings of shame and self-hate after getting her first period. Unlike her brother - or all the other males for that matter - she feels a lack of freedom and the development of a set of arbitrary restrictions which are imposed on her by her family and later society as a whole.
I was going to show my mother that I was more intelligent than my brother, than the man she’d wanted me to wear the cream dress for, than any man, and that I could do everything my father did and more.
After the girl has been introduced to a potential husband in an arranged marriage, her determination to defy her parents’ and society’s expectations grows stronger. She asserts that she is not an item that can be traded or given away but that she is an individual with her own goals and dreams that she wants to pursue.
Science revealed the secrets of human existence to me and made nonsense of the huge differences which my mother had tried to construct between me and my brother.
During her dissection classes, she carefully examines the dead bodies of women and men, realizing that the way they are treated in society is completely arbitrary. After all, from a biological standpoint, they only differ in one chromosome, so she questions why the restrictions imposed on women are so severe.
My surgery filled up with men, women and children and my coffers with money and gold. [...] I felt a chilling cold as though I was sitting on a snowy mountain top.
Even though the doctor has become successful, she feels cold and empty inside. This is because she is missing a sense of meaning in her work, being disconnected with her patients. The sense of warmth and belonging finally comes back when she meets the musician, who shows her how to combine her profession with art.
Do you need anything?
At the end of the novel, after the divorce from a man who made the woman doctor choose between him and her profession, she finally meets someone who supports her. Instead of questioning or condemning her ambition, the musician asks her how he can make sure that she is successful. It is at this moment that she eventually feels accepted.
