A round pink pincushion supports a small plumed helmet, with pins around its edge and a trailing thread.

Original artwork, not a still

Lives of Girls and Women ‧ 1971

Alice Munro

I felt in him what women feel in men, something so tender, swollen, tyrannical, absurd; I would never take the consequences of interfering with it.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The narrator sees a mixture of tenderness, swelling pride, domination and absurdity in a man, then draws back from interfering with it. Those conflicting descriptions make the attraction or vulnerability feel complicated. The final refusal places the possible consequences beyond what the narrator will take on.

Context reviewed

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