“I felt freed to please myself, to find my way as I would, in a world that was much vaster than I had realized before, in which I was but one star-gleam, one wavelet, among multitudes. My happiness mattered not a whit more than the next person's - or the next fish's, or the next grass-blade's! - and not a whit less.”
Misskaela discovers in her early adult years that she has been granted a social leniency through her position of outcast. She learns to recognize how small she is compared to the vastness of the entire world, and she finds solace in this idea. Suddenly her fears and desires also seem proportionally small, and she feels liberated. She doesn't need to be the center of the universe, so she begins to take herself less seriously.
“It was one thing not to want a husband, I realized; it was quite another not to need one for the roof over your head, for your meat and bread, for the shoes on your feet and the coat on your back.”
Growing up, Misskaela experienced a great deal of persecution for her weight and her general attitude. When everyone got older, the boys stayed away from her. Misskaela also demonstrated no interest in them, so nobody begrudged the situation. As an adult, however, she recognizes that a marriage brings with it many necessary social and economic benefits which she may be unable to provide for herself.
“He was fine, and foreign, and he did not belong here. I held him close, not crushing, not waking him, letting him sleep, and I suffered. I had never felt such feelings before. I would do anything for him; I would do anything. Anything that was asked of me, that would increase his happiness or health, I would do, and willingly. So I told myself, rocking him, the winter sky white at the window.”
Misskaela gives birth nine months after meeting her first seal-person and having sex with him on the beach. She loves the child more than she has loved another person in her life. Motherhood really does change her because she devotes her attention now to supporting and providing for this baby. In the end, she gives him to his father to live a safer, better life in the sea.
“How different other families were, the shape of them, the things they presumed, the children that grew up in them.”
In this quotation, Misskaela reveals that her feelings of alienation in her community reach back to her earliest memories. The families around her had different roles within the family unit than hers. They taught their children to believe in their own superiority.
