hen. When she discovers her period, distractions loom everywhere, yet protection remains in the forefront of her mind. She encounters a whirlwind of emotions and bleeding controls her thoughts, she can do nothing else. Liz focuses her efforts to one cause and they remain there. This is a strength Liz uses to maintain her sanity in such chaotic conditions. Even with the most unlikely of things occurring, Liz keeps her sanity and control intact and perseveres through the situations. The situation does not make her paranoid, it does not even seem to phase her. Drabble uses Liz to show the capacity of women and their determination through trying times. Even with the biggest of distractions, women remain focused and capable of anything.Unlike Alix Bowen or Liz Headeland, Mme. Savet Akrun feels not only pride about her menstruation, but also shame and sorrow. Both she and the women in her village have had very dramatic experiences with their cycles, and the poverty and the violence only help to accentuate the problems that they have had. The women in her village have had to become very in tune with their bodies and their cycles because of the problems they have with finding protection. Unfortunately, as Mme. Akrun says, this has led many women to choose to cease to menstruate (153). Drabble shows that it is a sense of depression, the women cannot anticipate the actions of their bodies, when they bleed, they cannot protect themselves, so they will themselves into not bleeding. Drabble illustrates that Mme. Akrun and the women of the village view menstruation as something that cannot be taken by the wars and the violence of the world around them. It must be protected, even if that means stopping it for a period of time. Yet when the menstruation does start up again, the women rush and reproduce as quickly as possible, trying to combat the loss of lives in the war. The protection that these women have for their reproductive syste...
