The novel immediately establishes the kitchen in Zimmerman's home as his asylum. No cooking is ever done there and his parents never use it. This makes it an ideal place for Zimmerman to pray. To escape his parents' immature lunacy, he seeks solace in being able to find God through prayer.

He has taken to heart the biblical injunction against public prayer and believes it imperative that he find the fittest private place for these devotions. His bedroom is too public; his parents know when he is in it and when he is praying, but they never suspect that the kitchen could become his chapel. Zimmerman is determined throughout his narrative to sound like a down-to-earth, matter-of-fact person, and thus he ironically misses the symbolism of having chosen a kitchen as a place for worship. He may not be feeding his body in that room but he is...