Calpurnia Quotes

“As more individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there must in every case be a struggle for existence, either one individual with another of the same specie, or with the individuals of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life.”
Chapter 17, Home Economics, shows the struggles Callie Vee faces with her species: humans, and specifically her mother. They have different ideas of what she should be learning to survive and what lifestyle Calpurnia should lead. Calpurnia tries to nourish her mind with science and in that way exist to her full potential, but her mother would like to develop her into a wife who cooks and knits for a successful man. This is where the rest of the human species comes in, for the men to survive, they need women to stay home and feed them and raise their children.
At the beginning of this chapter, Callie Vee runs out of the house and her mother yells: “Come backs here. Specimens are all very well” “but I’m worried that you are lagging behind. When I was your age, I could smock and darn and had the essentials of good plain cookery.” Here, Mrs. Tate indicates that young ladies of Calpurnia’s age should be preparing for their
Calpurnia believes that the only way for her to feel like her life has meaning is to fulfill her passion of science, even when the entire world expects her to be a polite young lady. Callie Vee has a real, undeniable struggle when it comes to pleasing her mother verses pleasing herself. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate gives a preview of the feminist movement that will come. It describes teachers and nurses who live independently before they marry, and one role model for Calpurnia is Maggie Medlin, who she describes as: “an independent woman with her own money who answered to no man.” Calpurnia is struggling and fighting against this label that her species has placed on women due to the overpopulation of