Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary

Disturbed by Manna's proposition, Lin questions his own motives. Does he want to make love to Manna? Should he want to, no matter what the consequences? He decides a spiritual bond is more important than a sexual one. He also questions whether he is too rational, but decides he is doing what is best for the both of them. That night, he has an erotic dream about a woman, whose face, like that of the woman he dreamed of being married to, he never sees.

After he wakes up, Lin thinks about how he had often doubted his manhood until after his daughter was born, because he had never been passionately in love with a woman. That day, his roommates tease him about his dream, and thinking of the animalistic abandon it contained, he feels sickened by his own eroticism.

Part 1, Chapter 8 Analysis