It was something like pain and different from pain.
-- Zikora as Narrator (Pages 2 - 10)

Importance: While Zikora is in labor, she cannot believe the pain she is experiencing. Her physical agony is unlike anything she has ever experienced. Her attempts to describe it veer into mythical and archetypal terrain, and gradually begin to parallel Zikora's emotional discomfort. Just as her physical pain in the narrative present seems indescribable, so her emotional upset resists linguistic dimensions.

Bear it, that is what it means to be a woman...
-- Zikora's Mother (Pages 2 - 10)

Importance: Throughout her time in the delivery room, Zikora knows her pain is making her mother uncomfortable. Her mother's frequent looks of disapproval remind Zikora of her childhood. Even as a young girl, Zikora's mother would not allow her to complain. She learned early that women are supposed to silently endure. In the narrative present, however, Zikora resists these notions, seemingly using her verbal displays of agony as a means of...