Chapter 9 Summary

The chapter opens with Reta and her fellow writer friends enjoying a coffee time at the Orange Blossom Room on Main Street. The discussion revolves around the nature of goodness. One friend describes goodness as an abstraction, simply a representation of the general goodwill of a particular group of people. Goodness and greatness are viewed as two incompatible qualities, especially for women. The four friends then discuss the general disinterest that men, including their husbands, demonstrate toward them. They conclude that women are excluded from real life because women are viewed by men as lacking in moral authority and capability.

The discussion veers toward actual events, which leads them to speculate that perhaps men are right; perhaps women are simply incapable of transforming their sense of shock at injustice into acts of goodness. The first event they discuss concerns a woman in Mozambique...