“I waited to be told what was good about me. I wondered later if this was why there were so many more women than men at the ranch. All that time I had spent readying myself, the articles that taught me life was really just a waiting room until someone noticed you - the boys had spent that time becoming themselves.”
This quote highlights Evie’s low self-esteem early on in the novel and how society played a role in her lack of self-confidence. She recognizes that girls in general are often inundated with the idea that they must prove themselves worthy, while boys are given free reign to develop as they please.
“If you got mad, you were crazy, and if you didn’t react, you were a bitch. The only thing you could do was smile from the corner they’d backed you into. Implicated yourself in the joke even if the joke was always on you”.
This quote again highlights the major theme of gender relations and women as perceived by society. Evie, and other women she associates with including her own mother, prescribe to the notion that they must act in a certain way for the benefit of men. Evie describes women as walking a fine line between reacting versus not reacting, rather than letting their true emotions show for fear of how they will be categorized. They sacrifice their own dignity in order to fulfill a certain standard as dictated by society.
“Poor Sasha. Poor girls. The world fattens them on the promise of love. How badly they need it, and how little most of them will ever get. The treacled pop songs, the dresses described in the catalogs with worlds like ‘sunset’ and ‘Paris’. Then the dreams are taken away with such violent force; the hand wrenching the buttons of the jeans, nobody looking at the man shouting at his girlfriend on the bus. Sorrow for Sasha locked up my throat.”
This quote also touches on the sexism that still prevails years after Evie has grown up, which is evident in Sasha’s actions and timidity. As a middle-aged woman, Evie is now able to recognize more clearly the subtle messages filtered down through pop culture and society that contribute to a naivete in young girls and women when it comes to love.
“He seemed amused by my professionalism, though I’m sure he saw, too, the worship that hijacked my face whenever I spoke of Suzanne. My half-hitch step those times I hurried to her side. Maybe it confused him not to be the focus of all that desire - he was a handsome boy, used to the attention of girls.”
In this quote, Evie is referring to Guy and how her worship fell on Suzanne rather than him, in a reversal of traditional roles. Rather than Guy being the focus of Evie’s full attention, she is enamored with Suzanne. Looking back, she realizes that she was idolizing Suzanne and the freedom and self-confidence she represented to Evie. Even though Evie’s desire for Suzanne wasn’t of a purely sexual nature, this quote highlights the traditional roles of boys and girls in her upbringing, where girls were meant to be enamored with boys, rather than other girls.
“The slap should have been more alarming. I wanted Russell to be kind, so he was. I wanted to be near Suzanne, so I believed the things that allowed me to stay there. I told myself there were things I didn’t understand. I recycled the words I’d heard Russell speak before, fashioned them into an explanation. Sometimes he had to punish us in order to show his love. He hadn’t wanted to do it, but he had to keep us moving forward, for the good of the group.”
This quote follows the incident where Russell suddenly slaps Helen in front of everyone. Looking back on it years later, Evie recognizes that it was not normal and that she actively tried to rationalize it in order to maintain her original idealistic view of the Ranch. She explains her rationalization, which touches on the theme of indoctrination within the novel. Despite seeing multiple warning signs, the idea of the Ranch and the promise she sees in it prevents Evie from recognizing that her and the others are being brainwashed.
