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Themes and issues: a stimulus for discussion groups.

Using these quotes to help you get started, discuss the way the novel deals with the theme you've chosen and your own ideas about it.

RITUALS, RULES, CULTURAL TRADITION

" illegitimacy isn't a big deal any more!" (p35)

Jacob: " But what's the big deal? Everyone has babies without being married these days. Everyone lives together and gets remarried."

Josie: "We live in the same country but we're different. What's taboo for Italians isn't taboo for Australians." (p152)

" A daughter's behaviour always reflects on how good a mother is." (p37)

"…you want to
go out?"

"…You'd have to meet my mother." (p106)

Tomato day — National Wog Day (p171)

" A tradition that we'll never let go. A tradition that I probably will never let go of either, simply because there are some things that could offend people I love. You live with such freedom Jacob… You live without religion and culture. All you have to do is abide by the law."

PRESSURE
Jacob: "Welcome to the nineties, Josephine. Women don't have to be virgins any more."

Josie: "…Women don't have to be pushed into things anymore…it's (virginity) not a prize and I'm not a prize. But it's mine. It belongs to me and I can only give it away once and I want to be sure when it happens Jacob…or one day someone else is doing it. I don't want to do it, Jacob, because everyone else is doing it." (p213)

Michael: "…living is the challenge, Josie. Not dying. Dying is so easy. Sometimes it only takes ten seconds to die. But living? That can take you eighty years and you do something in that time, whether it is giving birth to a baby or being a housewife or a barrister or a soldier. You've accomplished something. To throw that away at such a young age, to have no hope, is the biggest tragedy." (p236)

"Father Stephen said that peace is a state of mind. We will never have world peace, John, so we have to be peaceful within ourselves and that will make...