The Oven symbolizes the community of Ruby. After years of debate over the Oven (and thus, by extension, the community), its foundation finally gives way on Ruby’s most polarizing night: the night that the town’s latent sexist violence becomes explosive. Dovey fears that the attack on the Convent, where a white woman lives, will bring “white law” down on Ruby, suggesting that the men’s efforts to maintain Ruby’s isolation have in fact jeopardized it. Dovey and Soane try to convince themselves that their husbands are not capable of murder, and they hope that someone stops the men before they can disprove that belief.