51 pages • 1 hour read
Women Talking
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “June 6: August Epp, at Night Between Meetings”
Part 3 Summary
August is alone in the loft, finishing his notes. There has been “an incident.” As the women were dispersing, Autje and Neitje, who left the loft first to check on the livestock, return. They call up to the women to warn them that Klaas, Mariche’s husband, is with them. As he climbs the ladder, the women quickly hide the evidence of their meeting—August’s notes and the posted lists of pros and cons.
When Klaas asks what the women are doing in the loft, they tell him they have been quilting. August plays along and says he is learning to sew so he can stitch up children’s cuts. After interrogating the women half-heartedly and insulting August’s manhood, Klaas explains he is back to gather animals to sell for bail money. The women work to dissuade Klaas, but he is not deterred and even threatens to take Greta’s team of horses, Ruth and Cheryl. Klaas instructs Mariche to gather the children and come home, and she leaves the loft with him. August and Salome are the last to leave the loft, and they continue to quietly discuss the plans to leave. August intends to retrieve the safe with the colony’s money for the women to take with them.
Later that night, August encounters Ona outside, and they sit on the roof of the wash house, looking at the stars. He tells her what happened to him when he was outside the colony, including the act that landed him in jail: stealing a police horse. He kept the horse for a while, he tells her, and used it as a pack animal and “friend” to the protesters he lived with until he was caught.
Ona asks August if he lost his faith when he was in jail and if he was afraid. He answers that he wanted to kill his cellmates and the guards many times and that he was always afraid.
Part 3 Analysis
This short section serves as a respite from the intensity of the meeting and gives more insight into August, Ona, and their relationship. August’s stint in jail echoes the women’s containment in the colony: His fear is their fear, his anger is their anger, and his questioning of faith is their questioning of faith. Meanwhile, his experiences in the commune of protesters suggest the kind of life the women are seeking for themselves. Though not religious, this society was not unlike Molotschna in its emphasis on “simple” and “collective” living. That the British government considered this arrangement “antisocial” further justifies the women in keeping faith in a religion steeped in hypocrisy; though Molotschna is deeply flawed, the women aren’t necessarily wrong to view “mainstream” society with suspicion or to want to preserve elements of their culture and religion. The commonalities between the women and August explain why the women have accepted him as an ally (if sometimes begrudgingly) and taken him into their confidence.
At the same time, Klaas’s return, and especially his intrusion into the female space of the loft, serves as a reminder of the violent and repressive nature of patriarchy. Even the women’s efforts to deflect him with an appropriately “feminine” response—their claim that they have been quilting—does not satisfy him. He continues to question them about their activities, in between mocking August for supposedly taking part in the women’s sewing, and his insistence on taking Greta’s horses reads in particular like a power play—an assertion of his authority as a man. Tellingly, he responds to Greta’s objection by remarking that without her horses she’ll have to remain “at home,” which he presumably sees as her place.
Unlock all 51 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Miriam Toews
