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Sunsets represent middle sister’s questioning of what she felt were self-evident truths about life, especially related to the Troubles. In French class, middle sister’s teacher makes her students look at the sky during a sunset after they all insist that the sky is blue. When middle sister looks outside, she sees that the sky is a multitude of colors and realizes that, if she was being honest with herself, this is something she has always known. This moment makes middle sister feel uncomfortable because it makes her question what other “facts” about her life she takes for granted. In particular, she wonders about the political “truths” have been drilled into her head as a result of her being an Irish Catholic. For instance, her community insists that the renouncers are on the right side of the conflict, yet middle sister’s life is completely upended when a renouncer—Milkman—begins to stalk her. Similarly, she has been told that Protestants are her enemy, yet she attends French class with them on a regular basis and finds them perfectly adequate classmates.
Sunsets Quotes in Milkman
The Milkman quotes below all refer to the symbol of Sunsets. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 3
Quotes
‘So, class,’ said teacher after this applause had died down, ‘is it that you think the sky can only be blue?’
‘The sky is blue,’ came us. ‘What colour else can it be?’
Of course we knew really that the sky could be more than blue, two more, but why should any of us admit to that? I myself have never admitted it. Not even the week before when I experienced my first sunset with maybe-boyfriend did I admit it. Even then, even though there were more colours than the acceptable three in the sky – blue (the day sky), black (the night sky) and white (clouds) – that evening still I kept my mouth shut. And now the others in this class – all older than me, some as old as thirty – also weren’t admitting it. It was the convention not to admit it, not to accept detail for this type of detail would mean choice and choice would mean responsibility and what if we failed in our responsibility? Failed too, in the interrogation of the consequence of seeing more than we could cope with?
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This was when I began to wonder, again, if maybe-boyfriend should be going to sunsets, if he should be owning coffee pots, if he should like football whilst giving the impression of not liking football, no matter I myself didn’t like football but my not liking football, apart from that Match of the Day music, wasn’t the point. Certainly he tinkered with cars and it was normal for boys to tinker with cars, to want to drive them, to dream of driving them if they couldn’t afford to buy them to drive them and weren’t sufficiently car-nutty to steal them to drive them. All the same, I did feel worried that maybe- boyfriend in some male way was refusing to fit in.
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Chapter 7
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Meanwhile, we two resumed our stretching then brother-in-law said, ‘Right? Are ye right?’ and I said, ‘Aye, come on, we’ll do it.’ As we jumped the tiny hedge because we couldn’t be bothered with the tiny gate to set off on our running, I inhaled the early evening light and realised this was softening, what others might term a little softening. Then, landing on the pavement in the direction of the parks & reservoirs, I exhaled this light and for a moment, just a moment, I almost nearly laughed.
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Get the entire Milkman LitChart as a printable PDF.
Sunsets Symbol Timeline in Milkman
The timeline below shows where the symbol Sunsets appears in Milkman. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
...the evening she goes running with third brother-in-law, she and maybe-boyfriend plan to watch the sunset together.
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Chapter 3
Middle sister knows exactly what the sky looks like during a sunset because she and maybe-boyfriend watched one just a few days before. However, she does not...
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While in French class, middle sister looks away from the sunset to avoid the complicated feelings that arise in her. When she looks away, she spots...
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After French class, middle sister walks home, her head still buzzing as she thinks about sunsets. On the way home, she has to walk through a place she calls “the ten-minute...
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As middle sister walks by the collapsed church, she looks again at the sunset through the trees of a nearby graveyard. Again, she contemplates what it would mean if...
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...they go drinking, that they have sex. He even knows about their habit of watching sunsets. When the milkman mentions the sunsets, he says it disapprovingly, as though he thinks watching...
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