I am going to start this blog stating I really don’t know what this story is all about yet, where it takes place or the time the story is set in. At first I thought it was set in like the 1800’s or early 1900’s but then our narrator mentions something about watching TV with no sound, and then there’s a reference to sort of punk rock haircuts and mini-skirts so that makes me think the story has to be set after 1980? After rereading the first chapter I’m getting the idea of some sort of refugee camp or situation, where everyone is sleeping in a gymnasium and the football field is surrounded by barbed wire. Also there are armed guards outside the fences.

The second chapter leads me to believe the narrator, in the 1st person POV for this story, is assigned to some sort of duty or to be a servant in the house of a military commander.  She talks about being escorted to her “new posting” by the guardian from the previous posting and meeting the Commander’s wife for the first time. The narrator, whom we don’t know her name yet, describes in great detail the clothing she seems forced to wear, even saying she looks like ” a sister dipped in blood” which is very visual. The narrator mentions when describing the room that it could be a rooming house for “ladies in reduced circumstances. That is what we are now. The circumstances have been reduced; for those of us who still have circumstances.” This leads me to believe that she’s part of a larger group of girls/women who have similar fates. She also talks about “Marthas” and how they dress differently and have different duties from her, and how “nobody much cares who sees the face of a Martha” then also mentions the Martha has “brown” arms, so I think there could be a reference to some sort of racial undertones going forward with these women, who they are and what’s going to happen going forward. One last quote that jumped out was “Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last.” That to me suggests that the scenario she finds herself in can be temporary, if she navigates it correctly, but the alternative to that is her “not lasting” which can be interpreted many different ways, but to me means death.