ch he loved us all. This idea of love is simple, involving hugs, smiles, and friendliness, the sort of love Bone gets from Anney. However, as Bones relationship with Glen changes, so does her perception of love.On page 108, Glen asks Bone, Dont you know how I love you? Bone thinks to herself, No, I did not know. This is near the beginning of Bones confusion about love, what it means, and what it does. At the time he asks her, he is molesting her. It is no wonder that Bone was confused, having love expressed simply, from her mother, and sexually (if indeed it is love) from Glen. This confusion leads bone to question the idea of love, and to look elsewhere for it, perhaps to compare.Love, she finds, is a prominent idea in the Southern Baptist church. Bone is enthralled with the black and white of Christianity, the definitive line drawn between good and evil, because she can see where the love is, and what it does. She believes she can see that other people truly love one another, and believing this, she thinks the has a better grasp on the abstract idea of love. However, as Bone later discovers, love is abstract, and being abandoned by her mother, she never truly figures it out.The problem within, for Bone, is that love is a conceptual idea, and that, really, it means something different to each person. Not only that, but love is used by others, in ways that may not suit anyone elses conceptions of the idea. So when Anney insists to Bone and everyone else that Glen loves her and her girls, Bone tends, of course, to believe her, and thus the idea of love is transferred to how Glen treats Bone. His sexual and physical abuse to her takes on the meaning of love, because she believes that Glen loves her, and anything he does must be representational of that love. However, her confusion stems from the fact that others, too, love her, and do not treat her in this way. Bone, in trying to discover the meaning of love, compares betwee...
