Cold Mountain

1. Cold Mountain Verbs, all of them tiring

2. Epigraph • “Simply living had never struck Ada as such a tiresome business.” p80

3. Analysis • At the start of the chapter Ruby establishes what she wants done around the property. The amount of labour required soon dawns on Ada and she realises how much easier money made everything. • ‘All Ada could think was that every step in the process that Euby had so casually sketched out would be many days of hard work to come up with a few yards of material coarse as sacking. Money made things so much easier.’ (p73) • This moment of self-awareness is also supported through Ada’s lateranalysis ofher life with Monroe, in which she was raised to be an educated woman, rather than one of labour. • “When Monroe was alive, living was little more labor some than drawing on bank accounts, abstract and distant. Now, with Ruby, all the actual facts and processes connected with food and clothing and shelter and were unpleasantly concrete, falling immediately and directly to hand, and every one of them calling for exertion” p81

4. This moment of self-awareness leads toAda working with Ruby to help support and improve the condition of Black Cove and through this, she begins to break certain “lady-like” habits. • “Ruby counted her first victory when Ada succeeded in churning cream to butter. Her second victory was when she noted that Ada no longer always put a book in her pocket when she went out to hoe the fields.” (p81) • Another defining moment is when Ada decides to sell the piano over the cabriolet. Ada justifies her decision by stating that “Truth be told, though, her hand at the instrument was not particularly fine, and it had been Monroe’s choice that she learn to play it to begin with.” (p74) • Another reason could be that Ada was beginning to throw away parts of her old life in order to make room for her new labourintensive life.