For a long time I was afraid to tell anyone about what happened to me or even to let myself think about it at all, but I can tell you now that day was the end of my girlhood and the true beginning of my life. It always will be."
-- Forough (chapter 1 paragraph 3)

Importance: Here, Forough explains that the day the virgin-testers broke her hymen was the ended her girlhood, instead of her first time having sex. In so doing, Forough implies that her inability to prove her virginity on her wedding night (she will not bleed as virgins are supposed to do, since her hymen is already broken) will wrench her out of girlhood and innocence, throwing her into her "true life." By alluding to her "true life," Forough foreshadows that the roles of wife and mother (both contingent upon virginity) will be impossible for her, and that instead, she will have to...