Chapter 14, Chapter 15 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 14: Walker decides to write her deafness article, but has several false starts. Her friend suggests she's not dealing with the essence of deafness, only skirting around it. Even though Walker is very busy at her magazine, she continues to interpret for little pay and a lot of inconvenience and anger. She is overextending herself. She deals with a deaf man named Tyrone who, misunderstood by the world, only wishes to act out in anger and violence. Walker describes her own inner anger and compulsion as a "vanilla fire" raging out of control.

One day, Walker interprets for a mental patient's session with a psychiatrist. The mental patient signs that she is the Virgin Mary, and Walker as usual says exactly what the patient is signing. Walker realizes that her entire life has been a process of repeating, of...