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Max
Raelene is the wife of Max and a mother of young daughters. She and her family live in the White Point caravan park where Max grew up. A woman from a working-class background, Raelene considers Max to be her “kind of bloke” and is very sexually attracted to him, but she is dismayed by their loveless marriage and his increasingly abusive behavior. Despite Max’s violence, she refuses to leave him. Raelene develops a close friendship with Sherry and her husband Dan. Through them she attempts to find religion, despite her initial suspicion, as she sees it as the secret to their happiness, a happiness that eludes her relationship with Max. Unfortunately, Raelene struggles to embrace spirituality, finding that genuine belief escapes her, though she comes close during epiphanic moments walking alone on the beach observing the night sky. While Raelene is a caring mother and loyal wife, Max mistakes her friendship with Sherry as signs of an affair and brutally attacks her. Even so, Raelene still refuses to leave him and even attempts to protect him from being fired when his boss learns what he has done. Raelene finally finds the religious feeling she has been seeking when she has something akin to an out-of-body experience during a horrific marital rape at the hands of Max.
Raelene Quotes in The Turning
The The Turning quotes below are all either spoken by Raelene or refer to Raelene. 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:
).
The Turning
Quotes
She was tired, yet it wasn’t ordinary fatigue. It was a deeper exhaustion. She was sick of herself, appalled at what she’d been thinking only minutes ago, ashamed of what she was, a mother who didn’t much care. Maybe someone like her didn’t deserve better than Max. She didn’t love him at all. But she was too scared to leave him, and not just because she was afraid of what he’d do to her or the girls if she did. No, she was really more frightened of being alone.
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Explanation and Analysis:
In the spill of light at the bedside she saw the little dome and her man upon the waves. She said his name, too, said it aloud with love enough to send a shudder through Max as he pushed her down. She knew she was safe from him now, not safe from tonight but gone from him altogether. He smelt of death already, of burning, of bile and acid. He was crying and she did not pity him. He was gone and it didn’t matter when. Everything was new. In her dome it snowed birds as the van rocked, birds like stars. The moment Max speared into her and tore open her insides she was full of hot and certain feeling. She was free. She had already outlived him.
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Raelene Quotes in The Turning
The The Turning quotes below are all either spoken by Raelene or refer to Raelene. 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:
).
The Turning
Quotes
She was tired, yet it wasn’t ordinary fatigue. It was a deeper exhaustion. She was sick of herself, appalled at what she’d been thinking only minutes ago, ashamed of what she was, a mother who didn’t much care. Maybe someone like her didn’t deserve better than Max. She didn’t love him at all. But she was too scared to leave him, and not just because she was afraid of what he’d do to her or the girls if she did. No, she was really more frightened of being alone.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
In the spill of light at the bedside she saw the little dome and her man upon the waves. She said his name, too, said it aloud with love enough to send a shudder through Max as he pushed her down. She knew she was safe from him now, not safe from tonight but gone from him altogether. He smelt of death already, of burning, of bile and acid. He was crying and she did not pity him. He was gone and it didn’t matter when. Everything was new. In her dome it snowed birds as the van rocked, birds like stars. The moment Max speared into her and tore open her insides she was full of hot and certain feeling. She was free. She had already outlived him.
