ave them are not happy and those that do not imagine thy bring happiness. However, we never see what really makes these women tick. All we see is them defined by their definition of men. For most of them, the achievement of marriage is much less fulfilling than its promise. Carol worries that Linda is too independent to become married. She suggests to Bernadette that Linda’s mood and behaviors are prompted by the little “cry” you have the night before you are married. It is the little cry of giving up your independence and maturing from a girl to a woman. However, when Carol asks Bernadette whether or not she has such a cry, Bernadette replies, “No love. I’ve just been cryin’ ever since!” (Russell 208).
The women are also interested in men from a romantic angle much more than they are for a sexual nature. They discuss not liking sex for the sake of sex, as when Carol suggests that sex and love can be combined with the right man, “It can be. With the right man it can. I’m not interested in fellers who want to make sex. I want a feller who makes love, not a feller who makes sex” (Russell 193). However, the men are also primarily concerned about women, but from a sexual more than a romantic point-of-view. If women see an escape from their desperate surroundings and limited possibilities through the promise of married love, the men use sex as one of their primary means of escape. The men are limited in their achievements because they are uneducated and poor. They have talented potential, like drawing, but they do not have the ambition to achieve something with the talent, mainly because they have little means educational access. Like Bernadette says of the local environment, “It’s like everythin’ else round here Carol, the life’s just drainin’ away from the place, but no one ever does anything about it” (Russell 195). The men use sex as an escape from their boredom and lack of opportun...