'I'll beat it out of you yet.'
We are led to believe that the narrator's brother is threatening to kill Immaculate's unborn child (14), but on the next page it is mentioned that "the baby in the next room was hollering its head off and must have been screaming for quite some time"(15). The violence in the scene is aimed not at the unborn child, which took away the woman's teaching job at the school, but at her undying spirit (in fact, we realise that the child is already born). Immaculate is full of passion, her "wide animal-like"eyes pulse with "raw courage" (14), and this characteristic of hers awakens fury in Peter, who longs for his unattainable freedom. Immaculate, however, has stated that "she would never give that up" (14). The world she lives in is starved and full of suffering, but her spirit, hopeful for life, maybe love (I am assuming), will not be stifled.