Summer Part 1

The first passage of the book that stuck out to me was "North Dormer is at all times an empty place, and at three o'clock on a June afternoon its few able-bodied men are off in the fields or woods, and the women indoors, engaged in languid household drudgery." (Page 4) This was right at the beginning of the book and it struck out to me because it sums up what we have been talking about in class before when it comes to the traditional roles of men and women. That text is basically saying even in this small town the role of the man is to go work in the field and the role of the woman is to do housework. It just shows that the notion of men doing field work and women doing house work has been set for a long time. Also I think this is important to the novel as a whole because right before this she says "How I hate everything!" I think this is Charity's way of saying she does not like how that is what is expected of her and I think that plays into why she wanted to work in the library, so she could get out of North Dormer. I think this relates to the narratives we have talked about where the women is always conforming to the role that is given to her, such as the housewife.

The second passage that struck out to me was in chapter six when Mr. Royall and Harney were talking about The Mountain after dinner. "He told me he had a child up there-or thought he had- a little girl; and he wanted her brought down and reared like a Christian. I was sorry for the fellow, so I went up and got the child." This passage struck out to me because when he was explaining to Harney the one time he went up to The Mountain he was talking about when he went up there and brought back Charity when she was a little girl. However, while he was telling him this he never once mentioned the little girls name or made a reference to how he was referring to Charity. I think he did this because he did not want Harney to judge her because she came from The Mountain, even though Harney already knew that and thought that was why Charity was different than the other folks in the town. I think Mr. Royall might have done this out of respect for Charity.