How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Goldman sent off a letter to Evelyn: I am often asked the question How can the masses permit themselves to be exploited by the few. The answer is By being persuaded to identify with them. Carrying his newspaper with your picture the laborer goes home to his wife, an exhausted workhorse with veins standing out in her legs, and he dreams not of justice but of being rich. (11.3)
This is Goldman understanding the role of women like Evelyn Nesbit, and how she foretells the existence of women like Marilyn Monroe and supermodels and their use in advertising. Capitalism holds up women like this as trophies for men, so that men will work to become rich and attain them.
Quote #8
He realized that every night since he'd returned home they had slept in the same bed. She was in some way not as vigorously modest as she'd been. She took his gaze. She came to bed with her hair unbraided. Her hand one night brushed down his chest and came to rest below his nightshirt. [...] With a groan he turned to her and found her ready. Her hands pulling his face to hers did not feel the tears. (14.1)
This is the not the same woman who closes her eyes and covers her ears during sex at the beginning of the novel. This is a bolder woman, and Father doesn't know what to make of it.
Quote #9
She thought about Father a good deal. The events since his return from the Arctic, his responses to them, had broken her faith in him. [...] During his absence when she had made certain decisions regarding the business, all its mysterious potency was dissipated and she saw if for the dreary unimaginative thing it was. (33.3)
With the discovery of her own potential, Mother realizes Father is kind of... well, dull. She might still love him and honor her marriage, but she is no longer in love with him. She realizes she deserves better. Here Doctorow shows us how many women of that time probably lived in stagnant marriages, kept down by a lack of awareness caused by only having the role of wife and mother available to them.