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Quote 9. I share with you this sense of oppressive narrowness; but it is necessary that we should feel it, if we are to understand how it acted on the lives of Tom and Maggie—how it has acted on young natures in many generations, that in the outward tendency of human things have risen above the mental level of the generation before them, to which they have been nevertheless tied by the strongest fibers of their hearts. Explanation and Analysis. At this point in the novel, the narrator admits that the lives of Tom, Maggie, and the other inhabitants of St. Ogg’s might seem oppressively stifling, provincial, and limited. However, the narrator also argues that it is necessary to depict the “narrowness” of a sheltered and intolerant community in order to understand how that environment shaped the lives of Tom and Maggie. Indeed, the narrator sees Tom and Maggie as only two examples of the way that young people often struggle to lead more open-minded, adventurous, and progressive lives than the generations before them. (For example, Maggie chooses to work at a boarding school rather than staying home like a lady, as the Dodson sisters want her to do.) At the same time, however, the narrator recognizes that the ties of memory and childhood are very powerful, comparing those ties to “the strongest fibers of their hearts.” The narrowness of St. Ogg’s is thus reinforced and enabled by Tom and Maggie's continuing loyalty to their family and community.