'Beulah lies in the interior, in the inward part of the earth.'
This quote from Evelyn concerns Beulah, the location of Mother and her recruits. Belulah is deliberately modeled on the structure of the female womb, symbolizing a place belonging to women, where women create. The idea that it is 'in the inward part of the earth' mimics the internal nature of the womb, whilst also implying that it is hidden and kept private. In this way, the structure of the city is made feminine, thus reflecting Carter's major concern in the novel: gender.
"Woman has the been the antithesis in the dialect of creation quite long enough."
This remark reflects the nature of contemporary society, where men are privileged over women due to patriarchy. Referring, like the novel's title, to the Biblical Creation story, this quotation shows how, ever since Eve, woman has been subjugated and made 'other' by man. In this case, the women of Carter's novel wish to reverse the traditional 'dialect of creation', taking the reins of power from man after thousands of years.
'I KNOW NOTHING. I am a tabula rasa, a blank sheet of paper, an unhatched egg. I have not yet become a woman, although I possess a woman's shape.'
These are Evelyn's thoughts immediately after his transformation to Eve. It is intensely concerned with identity and how we identify ourselves compared to how others see us and we see ourselves. The capitalization of the opening sentence takes the reader back to a pre-lapsarian state, one where Adam and Eve knew nothing prior to eating the apple in the Garden of Eden. Evelyn's declaration that he is 'a tabula rasa' and 'a blank sheet of paper' indicate that, like Eve in the Bible, he is at the beginning, if not the beginning. Also, he is aware that he 'possess[es] a woman's shape' but is not yet a woman, tapping into contemporary concerns about the fluid nature of gender.
'Time is a man, space is a woman.'
This quote is further evidence of Carter's preoccupation with gender and its variety of manifestations. It emphasizes the difference between man and woman but suggests both are equally powerful, occupying influential positions in the larger structure of the universe. The declaration that 'Time is a man' could be interpreted as evidence of man's domination over woman since the fall of Adam and Eve, whereas the declaration that 'space is a woman' implies that woman is equally able to manifest herself and her desires in novel and subversive ways. Additionally, it throws new light on the role and gender of the city in the novel, given that Beulah is a female-centric space created by women as the site of planning for a gender revolution.
