ANALYSIS: SPOILERS

'he'd always wondered what the inside of the doll might look like. For some reason, he'd thought the cotton would be brown' - this is indicator of how misconceptions are fostered. To believe that because people have different colours of skin means that it alters them internally, physically even psychologically is how alienation begins and catalyses into much worse. 

'if it came down to her word versus Loretta's, she would always be believed... she felt, for the first time, truly white' - the relationship between skin colour and disproportionate impunity which is contrasted by disproportionate persecution and victimisation of 'you were still colored and that meant that white men could kill you for refusing to die' 

'the profesor gave her books - Simone de Beauvoir... when Stella asked once if there were any Negro women in the group, Peg prickled. "Thet have their own concerns" - this ironic given the teachings of people like Beauvoir who demonstrate that by isolating the fights for women - feminism being splintered nothing can be conclusively be achieved. 

This recalls the words of Audre Lorde (whom I would recommend for anyone, particulary 'Sister Outsider' who said  - “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” To divide the fight is for some to lose and then can it ever really be called winning? 

'a dark man would trample her beauty. He'd love it at first but like anything he desred and could never attain, he would soon grow to resent it. Now he was punishing her for it' - The sort of fetishisation of what is different 

'If nothing could be done about ugliness, you ought to at least look like you were trying to hide it' 

I found the repeated use of passed over referring to Stella's transition to a white identity rather interesting. Initially recalling death more than transition suggesting an irreversible rebirth associated with adopting whiteness.