Chapter 3, Nosing Out the Facts: The Retrieval of Intuition as Initiation Summary and Analysis

This chapter continues the lessons about being a woman. The tone is one of friendly education. Estes mixes the objective with the subjective. She is not unprofessional in doing so; indeed, her personal tone is very endearing when contrasted with more formal writing styles that often eradicate a sense of the author's personality or identity. This personal writing is also beneficial since it helps readers to cultivate a clear sense of what biases the author has.

This story begins with a family and a tragedy. A girl's mother dies while the girl is in late prepubescent childhood. However, the woman gives the daughter a parting gift—a small doll and urges her daughter to trust in the parting token and...