Summary

In section eight of Ducks, Newburyport, the protagonist further laments the loss of Mommy by comparing herself to a kangaroo that has outgrown its pouch but nevertheless continues trying to claw its way back in. She suggests that her pouch life came to such an abrupt end because Mommy behaved somewhat coldly towards the protagonist when she was a child. The protagonist also uses color to better convey her youth, explaining that she remembers the pink and blue pastel pencils with which she drew all her pictures better than anything else from the entire year she lived in England.

The protagonist demonstrates her respect for nature when she hypothesizes that trees dream and feel like people. She draws additional comparisons between the environment and humankind when she reveals that the high, rocky ridges of Montana are called attics. These metaphorical attics serve as the...