How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
We were sure that the much-talked-about future that everybody was preparing us for would never come, for we had such a powerful feeling against it, and why shouldn't our will prevail this time? (3.21)
As young girls, Annie and Gwen both feel disdain for the unknown "future" that awaits them. They hope that their love of the present can ward it off.
Quote #2
In the year I turned fifteen, I felt more unhappy than I had every imagined anyone could be. (6.1)
Annie tends to measure time in her young life around one-year periods. So, as readers, we learn what she's doing when she's ten years old or the deep unhappiness she feels when she's fifteen years old. Why use the year as a block of time in this text?
Quote #3
It was the trunk that my mother had bought when she was sixteen years old—a year older than I was now—and in which she had packed all her things and left not only her parents' house in Dominica but Dominica itself for Antigua. (6.27)
Annie associates her mother's life milestones and escape from her oppressive family with her own. The inherited trunk becomes a symbol of the possibility to leave home.