The Struggle to Define Individual Identity

This is the book's primary theme, with its two central characters (Bethia and Caleb) each struggling to define an independent sense of who they are, what they believe, what they want to accomplish, and how they want to accomplish it, all in the face of substantial personal and societal obstacles. For Bethia, those obstacles primarily have to do with the fact that she is female, and females of the time, place and spiritual circumstance in which the narrative is set did not, with very few exceptions, receive the same exposure to an intellectual education that males did. She struggles against this constriction all her life, the intensity of her desire to learn occasionally leading her to impulsive actions for which she was punished, but eventually leading her to marital harmony with a man who shared, at least to some degree, her beliefs and...