The Grace Year, By Kim Liggett

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In The Grace Year by Kim Liggett, the idea that social oppression affects women by turning them against each other when they can be strong and united together is very visually represented through what they wear. At the beginning of the book we are told about the ribbons ‘All the women in the Garner County have to wear their hair the same way, pulled back from the face, plaited down the back.White ribbons for the young girls, red ribbons for the grace year girls, and black for the wives.’(Liggett 10-11). From the beginning, women have a place that is set by the men. They are all the same with a braid, but 1 crucial thing sets them all apart. White symbolizes innocence, beginning, and perfection. I braided my youngest sister's hair with a white ribbon to represent that. Using a white ribbon on the young girls before the grace year sets them as what the grace year girls and the wives have lost. “There’s a glimmer of seething hatred in their eyes. I can’t shake the feeling that their ill will isn’t for the men who did this to them, but for us, the pure, unbroken girls who now possess the magic they’ve lost.”(Liggett …show more content…

The Grace year is the year they must get rid of their magic and become wives. I did a braid with a red ribbon on my sister to represent this. When Tierney sees the horses with red ribbons in their manes she says “we’re nothing more than in-season mares for breeding”(Liggett 30). Earlier in the book she views her red ribbon as something that determines her fate and makes her nothing but what the men of the county want. At the end of the story, she views it as something that brings the women of the county together. “We sit on the edge of the ridge and braid each other's hair. It’s for us.for the women of the outskirts, the county, young and old wives and laborers alike.”(Liggett 364). The red ribbon makes the Grace Year girls feel too old for the white ribbon but still not mature enough to have a black

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