Pg. 12

"Belle says we are in hell right now and there isn't a God who would make men and women wanting what they want and then stick them in a hell after they've done it."

I think that Le Sueur is trying to get across the idea that that the people in her story are living an extremely hard life. The context of this sentance has Belle talking about how rough her life is:

["Belle says this is a rotten stinking world and for women it is worse, and with your insides rotting out of you and men at you day and night and the welfare workers following you and people having to live off each other like rats. It's covered with slime, she says."]

and how fearfull she is of how her lifestyle is a reflection of her "bad" morality. I think that what Le Sueur is really trying to get across here is that the women of her story are really struggling. They are having to deal with very hard lives, and society is frowning on them for doing things that they need to do to get by. All of this speaks to the reader because I think that anyone who has contemplated religion has had a similar thought. Is it wrong to do whatever it takes to get by? Haven't most of us done things that are not technically acceptable according to the tennets of a given faith? Why would we be given these desires to do things and then be told that we will be punished for having them? I think that most readers can relate to all of these questions.