The characters behave strangely, almost whacky at times, but the messages are clear and important. Gender roles were at a shift when she wrote this novel, so I can imagine that it must have had a profound impact on the thoughts and feelings of women trying to find their place in the new and improved world. In this regard, all though women have been vacillating between their roles as caregiver and individual less in recent years, there is a timeless struggle-for-self apparent on these pages, that even today’s woman can’t help but relate to.