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Chapter 3
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Milkman, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Stalking and Surveillance
The Personal vs. the Political
Gossip and Rumors
Gender Norms
Summary
Analysis
Middle sister has many more encounters with the milkman over the coming weeks. He regularly appears wherever she goes and, even when he is not around, middle sister feels he is watching. Still, he does not physically touch her or threaten to harm her. However, he continues to make veiled threats relating to maybe-boyfriend and car bombs. Strangely, middle sister feels like the milkman knows her better than maybe-boyfriend at this point, which she finds unsettling. Despite the milkman’s threats, middle sister decides to continue seeing maybe-boyfriend.
Although it rightfully upsets middle sister, the milkman knows her better than anybody. Although much of his information is superficial, the milkman knows things that middle sister has not shared with her mother or maybe-boyfriend. If nothing else, the milkman knows the particulars of his involvement in middle sister’s life, which she has kept secret from everyone.
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One day, middle sister asks maybe-boyfriend if he will stop driving his car. Maybe-boyfriend can only laugh—he works as a mechanic and, even if he didn’t, he would still drive his car anyway. Although maybe-boyfriend may have heard some of the gossip around town about middle sister and the milkman, the two of them have not discussed the subject at length. As such, maybe-boyfriend does not know about the milkman’s threats. Maybe-boyfriend assumes that middle sister is being paranoid because her brother-in-law died in a car bomb.
Middle sister worries that the milkman will follow through on his threats, but she cannot convince maybe-boyfriend to stop driving because she refuses to explain what is going on. Middle sister’s refusal to talk to maybe-boyfriend about the milkman perhaps derives from a fear that he will stop maybe-dating her out of jealousy or fear.
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Middle sister also has to deal with the gossip about her and the milkman, which has continued to spread around town. People regularly approach her to ask her questions about her life. Although sometimes the questions are direct and other times not, middle sister always assumes that they want to get information out of her regarding her relationship with the milkman. She distrusts nearly everyone and never gives them what they want to know.
To combat her nosy community, middle sister affects a flat personality and simply replies “I don’t know” to every question someone asks her. She thinks this is a good strategy because it does not give the community anything to work with in terms of gossip. If anything, she wants them to come away with the impression that she is too empty inside—mentally and emotionally—to do something like carry on an affair with the milkman.
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However, the effect of middle sister’s act is that she starts to feel like the person she is pretending to be. Other than her anxiety about the milkman, she feels empty inside, in part because she does not feel like there is anyone she can fully trust and share her feelings with. In retrospect, middle sister realizes that some of the people who approached her during this time, may have wanted to help her. Unfortunately, she was too closed off to be able to accept their help.
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Additionally, middle sister cannot approach the police about her issue with the milkman. There are two police forces in her area: the state police and the renouncer police. She cannot approach the renouncer police because the milkman himself is a renouncer, and she feels it is unlikely that she will get anywhere. Even now, she can hardly explain the milkman’s wrongdoings to herself, and she thinks she is unlikely to find a sympathetic ear from the renouncers. However, approaching the state police would be even worse. Not only would she be talking to the enemy, but she would be doing so in the hopes of getting a renouncer in trouble.
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Because middle sister cannot do anything about the milkman, her mental state quickly deteriorates. She has a difficult time getting to sleep at night and, when she does, the slightest sound wakes her up. She feels as though her house is making sounds to help protect her. However, she does not know what the house wants her to do once she is awake, as she feels helpless to stop the milkman’s transgressions. Additionally, although middle sister continues taking her French class, it no longer inspires her as it once did. She does not have the mental capacity to keep up with her studies and generally feels drained.
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Even worse is middle sister’s relationship with maybe-boyfriend. She continues to worry about car bombs and other renouncer-related acts of violence. However, because she does not tell maybe-boyfriend the full extent of what the milkman has said, he does not know that his life might be in danger. Even if he did, middle sister fears that he would not do anything about it.
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To make matters worse, the renouncers have been bothering maybe-boyfriend about his supercharger. They pay an evening visit to his home dressed in Halloween masks and balaclavas to let him know that, if he decides to sell the supercharger, they expect to get a cut of the profits. Additionally, they warn maybe-boyfriend that he better not have the part of the car with the British flag on it in his home—otherwise, there will be consequences.
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Middle sister worries that her lies about the car and the flag will end up coming back to bite her. However, maybe-boyfriend remains unconcerned. He refuses to give into the renouncers and, anytime they come around, he plays games with them rather than giving them what they want. Because they are both stressed out by their respective situations, middle sister and maybe-boyfriend end up yelling at each other.
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Maybe-boyfriend accuses middle sister of being ashamed of him and not wanting to touch him. Although middle sister has good explanations for the first charge, she cannot explain the second. Ever since the milkman came into her life, she feels she has transferred her negative feelings toward him onto maybe-boyfriend. Middle sister knows her behavior is not fair for maybe-boyfriend, but she cannot help how she feels. Meanwhile, middle sister is angry with maybe-boyfriend because he hardly seems to value his own life. Additionally, she accuses him of being too close with chef and insinuates that he does not act like enough of a man.
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Some unspecified amount of time later, middle sister meets with longest friend, a girl she has known since primary school. Longest friend is perhaps the person middle sister trusts the most, even though they do not talk much anymore. Middle sister knows that longest friend is well-informed about what is going on politically, though she would never openly advertise that information.
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Almost immediately, longest friend asks middle sister about what is going on between her and Milkman. Middle sister notices that longest friend calls her stalker “Milkman” instead of “the milkman,” which is a convention middle sister sticks with going forward. Middle sister tells longest friend everything about Milkman. When she is finished, she feels relieved to have to gotten everything off of her chest. She feels she can trust longest friend and is glad to have told her the truth.
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However, longest friend is not as supportive as middle sister hoped she’d be. Longest friend begins questioning her about her behavior in public, stating outright that she brought Milkman’s behavior on herself. Middle sister asks longest friend what she means. In particular, longest friend tells her that she needs to stop reading while walking. Additionally, she asks middle sister to explain why she is walking around at night with severed cats’ heads.
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Middle sister clarifies that she has only walked around with one cat’s head and explains her reason why. This is the first time someone has mentioned the cat’s head to her face, but now she recognizes that it is yet another bit of gossip the community has been holding over her head. Middle sister is hurt that longest friend is not more supportive and says so.
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Longest friend insists that middle sister is constantly behaving abnormally in public. In addition to the walking while reading, she does not talk to people or appear friendly. Here, middle sister realizes that the behavior she thought was making her inconspicuous is actually what was drawing attention to herself. She promises longest friend that she will stop reading while walking. In fact, she has been considering giving up the habit for some time anyway because it has become impossible for her to focus with everything going on. However, she still plans to stay quiet when people ask her questions, though she does not say so to longest friend.
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Longest friend is glad middle sister is willing to make some compromises. She feels that middle sister is constantly forgetting her situation and her family’s past. Although middle sister thinks she has only been being surveilled since Milkman came around, longest friend reminds her that the state police always stopped her more than other people because of her connections. Middle sister does not understand longest friend’s insinuation, so longest friend reminds her that multiple members of her immediate family have been involved in paramilitary activities.
Eventually, longest friend and middle sister move on to different subjects of conversation. In particular, they discuss first brother-in-law, who is in trouble because he has been harassing nuns. First brother-in-law found a religious painting of a nun praying with an ecstatic look on her face. He brought it to some local nuns and asked them if they thought the nun in the painting was having an orgasm. It is unclear exactly why he did this except that he got some sort of sexual pleasure out of it. However, before he could finish his questioning, he was quickly and forcibly escorted out of the church.
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The renouncers in town heard about first brother-in-law’s behavior and plan to do something about it. Middle sister and longest friend discuss what they might do to him, though neither really knows. After their discussion of first brother-in-law, middle sister and longest friend end their night together, promising to speak again in the future. However, after that meeting, middle sister only sees longest friend three more times: four months later at longest friend’s wedding, one year after that at her husband’s funeral, and three months after that at her own funeral. Longest friend is buried next to her husband in a graveyard middle sister calls “the usual place.”
