What are the opposing desires and inner conflicts that drive Marilyn in this part of the novel? Can her actions in different directions be explained or reconciled?

eleste Ng's Everything I Never Told You is set in 1977, but much of the novel is told in flashbacks, dating to the middle and late 1950's when Marilyn and James were growing up to the years of their early marriage. The 1950's were a time of great conformity for women (after the strides toward "liberation" during WWII). In this context, Marilyn chafes from social inequality and lack of career opportunity and determines to overcomes these obstacles. Then she meets and marries James Lee. By the time we've covered the first third of the novel, she has decided to abandon her family -- husband James and children Lydia and Nath -- to reclaim her lost dream of earning a college degree and becoming a medical doctor.